Div
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Posts posted by Div
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1 hour ago, Disco Duck said:
Are you genuinely this naive?
The SPFL Board recently approved plans for a Premiership-wide project to work with a leading pitch consultancy firm, which is regularly used by UEFA, to improve the standards of grass pitches in the cinch Premiership. The SPFL will be engaging with Premiership clubs on this project ahead of the new season.
That certainly reads like a follow on project to me.
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The two Beat the Drop threads have now been merged into this one.
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Just now, C4mmy31 said:
Hybrid - A thing made by combining two different elements.
Which part do you struggle with?
A Hybrid pitch, as classified by UEFA, is deemed to be a natural grass playing surface.
There are 5% plastic fibres interwoven with 95% natural grass, and there's some synthetic stuff going underneath in the root system too, but to all intents and purposes they are considered to be natural grass playing surfaces.
Pretty sure all pitches at the Qatar World Cup were Hybrid SIS Pitches.
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Celtic, Rangers, Aberdeen, Hibs, Hearts and Motherwell all definitely have Hybrid and as far as I'm aware they are the only clubs in Scotland.
Falkirk definitely wouldn't have gone from Hybrid back to fully artificial.
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3 hours ago, craigkillie said:
The resolution will be the only step in this initiative.Not sure it can be.
Who is paying for the new pitch consultants?
How can they uphold a new standard for grass pitches without telling anyone what the standard is?
Surely they also must address what happens if a newly promoted club has an artificial pitch and either does not have the time or money required to change it?
The rules must be updated at the very least to incorporate the ban.
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8 hours ago, paul wright scores said:
We played at Dens on May 18th and I can assure you the pitch had grass on it that day
Oops, that pic was actually Dens last Summer which, given what then unfolded the folllowing season, is hardly a ringing endorsement
Here’s St.Mirren’s pitch 23rd May.
Although Saints aren’t in League Cup group stages this season they are due to host a Europa Conference game as early as July 25th.
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5 minutes ago, Musketeer Gripweed said:
Dundee were in a position to start placing orders for a contractor in March.
Yes of course. I'd think teams competing for the Championship title would need to have contractors lined up ready to go but accept these guys aren't going to be sitting around waiting on a call.
This season at least it won't be a problem, as the ban doesn't come into place until the season after.
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5 hours ago, Musketeer Gripweed said:
Raith Rovers could have been promoted last weekend and the first round of league Cup fixtures are 13th June. That's only about 6 weeks. Impossible to get a grass pitch in that time period. Be lucky to get a contractor on board in that time.
I'm no pitch expert so I'm not sure how much of the infrastructure (drainage etc) under an artificial pitch can be re-used for a grass pitch but it is certainly possible to go from zero to a perfect grass pitch in that timescale.
This is Dundee's pitch as at May 17th and they are playing in the League Cup group stage. And in their case in particular you'd hope that this work includes a new drainage system!
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21 minutes ago, Torfason said:
What was the issue? Lack of application, lack of stamina?
The former leading to the latter.
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2 hours ago, Coventry Saint said:
I think he'd have the conversation: we're almost a different club now. But can you imagine how little patience he'd get from certain quarters.
Have to say I’d be one of those.
Murray would be a heavy No for me.
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1 hour ago, vikingTON said:
The increased revenue from top flight football prize money more than covers transition costs. The club's 'affected' by the change are just grifting for money that they do not in fact require. I don't blame them for trying to secure their best interests, but that's another myth that should be filed in the bin.
A newly promoted club will have two months to transition from plastic to grass, but wouldn’t have access to any of their prize money until nearer Christmas when the first tranche is paid out.
Even if was in the form of a loan I don’t think it’s unreasonable to expect the league to support a club which is now faced with complying with a rule that didn’t exist when they invested in their current pitch.
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Having agreed to ban the artificial pitches in the top flight, and undertaking to set a high standard for the grass pitches in use in the Premiership the SPFL now need to outline what support is going to be given to promoted clubs who need to transition, and also what the criteria and penalties will be for failing to maintain the grass pitches at the required level.
The passing of the resolution on Friday was surely only the first step in this initiative?
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It's hard for me to imagine Sunderland would come in for Robbo, but being realistic, if they did then it would be an absolute no brainer for him to go there.
Same as it was for Jack. They may be a basketcase but when all said and done they are massive compared to anyone in Scotland outside the big two.
The money in the English Championship is also insane compared to the washers we are playing with up here.
Hopefully nothing comes of it.
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1 hour ago, RandomGuy. said:
Think your fans will boo Ryan Strain next season or not?
Wouldn't have thought so. He was very popular obviously and whilst it would be a bit disappointing to see him move to another Premiership club I'm not massively sure he'll be awash with brilliant options.
He's a very good player, but as has been said, he's got real issues with fitness and by that I don't mean just with picking up niggling injuries.
Has an interesting approach to training by all accounts!
Not sure if Utd are in for him or not, but Dundee have definitely made him an offer.
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1 minute ago, invergowrie arab said:
It's GTF day. I'm not waiting on the mods getting out of their pits
Ahem..............
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Happy GTF Day to all who celebrate it
All forum descriptions have been updated, the homepage club list has been sorted, and most importantly all the big threads for the clubs involved have been moved.
Let me know if we've missed anything!
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45 minutes ago, Disco Duck said:
Don’t think you’ve read the room well on this one
If we all agreed all the time there would be no need for P&B.
I'll leave the room now!
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25 minutes ago, Disco Duck said:
Just reading Div’s pathetic justification for protectionism, backed by “it’s just my opinion” using the PnB account to post “facts” on social media. Laughable. Utterly laughable.
Apologies for using my own account to post my own opinions champ.
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3 minutes ago, Blame Me said:
One word - Money.
You've now stumbled into comparing apples with oranges.
Why have you left out the question I asked before that, as that is what the context was.
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4 minutes ago, HopeStreetWalker said:
Not unless it is blatant self-interest by some clubs something SPL and SPFL have a long lamentable track record on.
Are the top division clubs going to forfeit a % of the league position prize money for a fund for the transition package? not on your puff.
They will have to. Unless the pitch consultancy firm coming in are going to work for free.
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13 minutes ago, Blame Me said:
In the time it's taken to reply others have rebutted some of your points @Div so will focus on the grass aspect.
Thanks for clarifying the context around SMISA's stance. However, It would be good if you or others with similar understanding could direct sceptics like me to where the standards they'd need to adhere to were set?
All I'm seeing and hearing is the commitment to have more money leave the game to "pitch consultants" and contractors without a clear metric to judge them by (yet).
As noted in other public forums - if for whatever reason some pitches can't meet those standards are the SPFL really going to allow their premier competition to have a hiatus whilst the problems are rectified - I didn't have much sympathy for Dundee but if you take their mitigations at face value then unprecedented weather conditions they pointed to don't (and didn't) get resolved week-to-week.
I also agree with @scottsdad that the premise of a perceived advantage can't hold much water when the other 10 all use the same surface? Surely the inverse can also be true (and has more weight) that grass is a bigger advantage, in reality
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Finally, there are so many instances in football where "levelling" the playing field (pun intended) becomes absurd* that proposing it would be laughed out of these working groups and yet this one has gotten to this stage is laughable.
* Effectively banning away fans surely gives certain teams an advantage; reducing pitch sizes to suit/hinder playing styles - which has happened since day dot - or the wildest one I can think of - Suggesting that our largest clubs can only admit the same number of home fans as away ones as majority partisan crowds provide an advantage.
The above are so ludicrous they don't pass muster and yet a simple grass vs. artifical question without context of why beyond "aesthetics" has been allowed
To be clear I don't think the perceived advantage is one of the main drivers of the new resolution, but it does help to "level the playing field" if you pardon the pun.
Would even Falkirk fans admit that leaving finances aside, playing the game on a good grass pitch IS preferable to playing on an artificial pitch?
If not is there a reason that in England, a country with a very similar climate to ours, there isn't a single artificial pitch at any of their 92 clubs from Premier League down to League 2?
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Just now, Blame Me said:
You do know they got relegated
Yes, they got relegated after a six year stay, operating with the lowest budget in the division by miles every season (apart from when Hamilton were in the division, also punching well above their weight and also with an artificial pitch).
They won 19 points at home and 6 away last season.
Home advantage is obviously a thing in football, be it grass or astro, but those numbers are very pronounced.
They did recruit well and played some good stuff at times during their six year stay, but you cannot look at the numbers and say hand on heart that their pitch definitely didn't give them any sort of advantage?
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1 minute ago, Rocco said:
My biggest issue with this vote is the timeline to implement the new rule. Clubs who have ambitions of making it to the top league will have spent money on an artificial surface knowing that they should get around 8 years out of it and it will be allowed in the top league. But now a vote has come in, which is almost an immediate ban with no reasonable time to adjust. Why not bring the rule in for 5 years down the line? That would then gives teams time to find a resolution and at least get some good use out of their investment.
By not doing what I’ve stated above it proves that this is just a vote to make it a closed shop as there is absolutely no reasonable adjustment time for the teams it will affect.
It is a two year phase out, so won't apply until season 2026/2027.
The devil will be in the detail but I do not see how they can deliver the resolution without offering financial support to promoted clubs who need to transition.
That would not make any sense. To me anyway.
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18 minutes ago, scottsdad said:
Two things.
I put research papers in the other thread showing - a worldwide study and others - that shows no advantage to playing on plastic. Let's put that to bed - it does not exist.
Second - what happens if a club playing on plastic is promoted to the top flight? Have you considered the implications on such a club?
I think you can easily argue that there is an advantage to a team playing on an artificial pitch.
If you look at St.Mirren last season we played 38 league games. 34 of those were on grass, 4 were on artificial pitches.
Livingston played 21 games on an artificial pitch.
You can easily argue, given that Livingston's pitch in particular is horrible and nothing at all like grass, that they gained an advantage.
I don't think that's unreasonable.
I've already mentioned the prospect of a club with an artificial pitch being promoted. I'd be looking for a central fund to be set aside to provide that club with the financial help required to transition to a grass pitch. There's no reason that transition couldn't happen between winning the Championship and starting a new season in the Premiership. A lot of the clubs relay their pitch every Summer.
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When are you leaving?
in Tartan Army Ramblings
Posted
We fly out Thursday morning through Dublin to Munich.
Feel like a kid on Christmas Eve. So fucking excited!