FOOTBALL


Inverness Caledonian Thistle Football Club


In deep water I


Inverness Caledonian Thistle Football Club began life in 1994 and came to prominence, or perhaps notoriety, when the still considered minnows took on the might of Celtic at Celtic Park in the Scottish Cup, running out 3-1 winners. The Scottish Sun’s headline the following morning read; “Super Caley go ballistic, Celtic are atrocious”. Lee Williams packed his umbrella and headed up to the Highlands to meet the club’s Head Groundsman, Dale Stephen


nverness Caledonian Thistle Football Club was first founded as Caledonian Thistle F.C. in August 1994 by the merger of Highland Football League clubs, Caledonian and Inverness Thistle, and adopted its current name two years later. They compete in the Scottish Championship, the second tier of the Scottish Professional Football League, and host home games at the Caledonian Stadium with a capacity of 7753. Tasked with keeping the stadium pitch in tip-top condition is Head Groundsman, Dale Stephen. “The stadium pitch was first constructed in 1994 and, since then, it has always had problems with holding water,” Dale explains. “The way I look at it is there wasn’t much of a pitch construction; at least not what you would talk about in the modern sense. There are things out there that you would never do if we were to rebuild the pitch now. It was built on a gravel raft, and the rootzone was mixed out on the car park - three soil, two sand and one peat! Why you would ever put that down, I don’t know? The pitch has a 400mm camber


from the centre to the sides. It originally had four main auxiliary drains and is meant to drain laterally into the gravel raft, but every time I take the manhole covers up in heavy rain to check the flow, nothing is running through them.”


“The pitch has had umpteen drainage solutions tried out over the years by different contractors. Eight new drains running the full length of the pitch, which has never really worked or hit their full potential. After this, the pitch had fifteen sand slits put in to help pull the areas in between the drains together, and it has also been sand banded in four different directions. But none of these solutions, so far, have helped significantly improve percolation through the surface.” Unfortunately for Dale, this is not the end of his problems when it comes to drainage of the pitch. The undersoil heating pipes that were laid in 2003 as a requirement by the Scottish Premier League, when the club gained promotion, have not made the situation any easier to manage. “The pipes were laid in December of that year and the pitch was like porridge, the tractor wheels


One thing led to another, and I was lucky enough to end up getting the position. I have not looked back since, even when things have got tough in the winter months


60 PC December/January 2020


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