FOOTBALL
then there’s Alan Burrows who’s the Chief- Executive, and fortunately for a guy like me, they’re both very pro-pitch.” “Without them, I couldn’t do this job, and most importantly I couldn’t provide a pitch which players enjoy playing on.” “And then, when your pitch is voted as the best in the league by the very players who play on it, it makes you realise just how much the work we put in does for the surface itself, and the football club too.” Chief-Executive Alan Burrows is well aware of the benefits a good pitch can bring to the football club, let alone the best pitch in the division. And it was a challenge facing the newly appointed chief four years ago. He said: “When I was promoted in 2014, one of my first targets was to completely change the priority in which the pitch was held at Fir Park.”
“Prior to then, we had spent a small fortune on trying to make the surface better, we had a full rebuild, at least three or four renovations and some remedial work, but what I always felt was lacking was the culture around the place and the importance, almost obsession, placed on providing the best possible pitch for our first-team players to play.”
“It took a good few months to get to grips with it, but the catalyst for the transformation came with the appointment of Paul Matthew in the spring of 2015.” “Paul is, in my opinion, at the very top of his profession and we are extremely fortunate to have someone with his ability, skill and drive at the head of the department.” “Along with our Facilities Manager Alan Marshall, we immediately addressed things like usage. There would be no Under 20s matches. There would be no women’s matches. There would be no fan matches and we wouldn’t accept any additional
68 PC August/September 2018
games, like youth internationals or friendly matches.”
“That may appear fairly drastic, but with the proverbial mountain we had to climb, we had to first control the controllable.” “What that did was tell people that, to play on the first-team pitch was a right rather than an expectation. Paul wanted to make that area of the stadium sacrosanct, so we introduced things like pitchside barriers and signage to ensure we drummed home the message that it was no longer acceptable to be on the pitch unless working on it, or playing on it.” “Paul then completed a full reconciliation of all his equipment that he inherited and it became clear that he had machinery that he didn’t require, but was also missing several vital tools that he would need to really start making a difference.”
“The biggest of which was grow lamps and, following a successful trial with TLS, we introduced our first in the autumn of 2015. That might not seem like a massive deal, but it was in Scotland. Previously, it had only been thought possible for the really big clubs in the country like both Old Firm clubs and Aberdeen to be able to have pitch lights. Yet Motherwell had one and it has kicked off a bit of a snowball effect now with the majority of the clubs in the top-flight now owning at least one. We now have four!” Alan added: “What the TLS lamps have done is help kick on the pitch tremendously and, in combination with the skill and the contentious groundsmanship of Paul, we have turned Fir Park from what was the perennial joke to what was just recently voted the best pitch in the SPFL Premiership; all within three years.” “We still have our inherent problems that are tricky, or even impossible, to fix. We have an almost six-foot slope from one corner flag to the other which, as you can
imagine, brings about its own challenges. We are almost ninety metres above sea level; amongst the highest football grounds in the whole UK. In addition, Lanarkshire is noted for its high rainfall levels, sitting as a deep valley some thirty or forty miles from the Atlantic Ocean with weather patterns battering us from the south west. We have a huge 175m stand in the south end of the ground which, for most of the year, blocks the pitch from natural sunlight.” “All of those things mean we have to take the maintenance and upkeep extremely seriously and, as long as I am here, we will.” “I am extremely proud of the work that has gone into it. It has taken financial commitment from the Board of the club, it has taken the introduction of specialist tools like the TLS lights but, mostly, it’s taken the direction, leadership and drive of a top-class operator like Paul Matthew and, as far as I am concerned, there is no praise high enough for him or the group of people that have helped turn this rags to riches story into a reality.”
As far as I am concerned, there is no praise high enough for him or the group of people that have helped turn this rags to riches story into a reality
”
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