The New Raith Rovers Thread

[tazz1903]

48 minutes ago, Jilted John said:

I know what a hybrid pitch is, and that they are allowed in the top tier. The rules must allow a certain degree of synthetic. Would they allow a goal mouth or a corner section? Would it even be possible?

Don't worry about pitch upgrades  Better booking Train times to Leven , for next season  

[Ro Sham Bo]

1 hour ago, tazz1903 said:

Don't worry about pitch upgrades  Better booking Train times to Leven , for next season  

I wouldn't put money on that line still running by next season. 

[Scottydog]

The simple answer to the pitch is to do what Oldham did and Killie plan to do, install a hybrid. More durable and community use could continue to some extent.

Unfortunately the cost of that comes in at around £1m, then there's the maintenance that would be substantially more than the synthetic surface requires.

Donner Pies will hence forth be £10 each and the drinks prices in the lounges would take a bump too. 

[pub car king]

The pitch situation is tricky, like it's been said its starting to show it's age and it's had a lot of use over the years. First team matches, training, community use, seniors games etc. 

John Sim holds the keys to the Kingdom on this and he wants the ground to be used by the community as much as possible with Rovers being tennents.

If we were going to kick around the seaside league bottom half of the championship then plastic makes sense for everything. However promotion to the league of self preservation is the goal of the board so it has to be grass/hybrid. 

We would also now need at least 1 new training pitchbfor the first team and then something for the community. All of this is going to take a substantial investment, perhaps tie in with Kirkcaldy and Dysart? 

[CountryBumpkin]

16 minutes ago, pub car king said:

The pitch situation is tricky, like it's been said its starting to show it's age and it's had a lot of use over the years. First team matches, training, community use, seniors games etc. 

John Sim holds the keys to the Kingdom on this and he wants the ground to be used by the community as much as possible with Rovers being tennents.

If we were going to kick around the seaside league bottom half of the championship then plastic makes sense for everything. However promotion to the league of self preservation is the goal of the board so it has to be grass/hybrid. 

We would also now need at least 1 new training pitchbfor the first team and then something for the community. All of this is going to take a substantial investment, perhaps tie in with Kirkcaldy and Dysart? 

Either a tie in there, or a new tie in with the Michael Woods institute for training and community. 

[Always next quarter]

1 hour ago, CountryBumpkin said:

Either a tie in there, or a new tie in with the Michael Woods institute for training and community. 

Seem to recall Sim saying a years rental at Michael woods for the first team was around £40K so that won't be a winner. 

[stevoraith]

As soon as the ban on artificial surfaces for the top flight was mooted I thought of the parallels with the 10k seater stadium rule and thought we’re going to get stung again. 
 

Nothing between then and now has changed my mind, I still think we’ll end up being out of pocket (and worse, lose some of the connection we’ve built with the community) because of an arbitrary rule the bigot brothers want to implement and all the other teams are too scared of the bullies to stand up to them. 

[Broken Algorithms]

The logical move would be to get our current surface tied into Alex Penman Park and a partnership with Kirkcaldy and Dysart to base the community foundation out of there. 

[Ro Sham Bo]

It seems to me that we've decided just to resort to being rubbish so that we don't have to deal with it.

[renton]

Just now, Ro Sham Bo said:

It seems to me that we've decided just to resort to being rubbish so that we don't have to deal with it.

A masterful gambit.

[Michael W]

Celtic, for example, are more than happy for their ladies team and their B team to play on these appalling artificial surfaces that seemingly have no place in the Premier League. In short, there are two reasons for the ban: 

1) The OF dropped points against Livingston/Killie and, obviously, this was solely due to the pitch and could not be explained by any footballing factor whatsoever. Unacceptable as the other lot might win the title instead. 

2) Another opportunity for Scottish football to chuck up a barrier to entry and hope that a Falkirk-style scenario saves a 'big' team if they have a bad season. As @stevoraith says, it's the modern day version of 10k seats and undersoil. 

For the avoidance of doubt, I would prefer that we played on grass. However, Scotland has a shitey climate and properly maintining a grass pitch is very expensive. As a result, numerous grass surfaces in the lower leagues end up akin to WW1 battlefields after a particularly wet/cold January - the resources to properly maintain them aren't there. 

Not that the league will necessarily finish this way, but three* of the current top 4 have plastic pitches. The requirements must therefore be causing a lot of circumstances concern, although at least in this case they'll get a season to listen to some persistent whining before grass needs to be installed. 

*this includes Queen's Park, despite the ludicrous lengths they go to in order to avoid playing in their own stadium. 

Edited Monday at 11:56 by Michael W

[CountryBumpkin]

15 minutes ago, Broken Algorithms said:

The logical move would be to get our current surface tied into Alex Penman Park and a partnership with Kirkcaldy and Dysart to base the community foundation out of there. 

There's a lot of additional work that would need to be done (lighting, drainage, access, maintenance), and while it would be pretty expensive, it would be a sensible option. 

[Zanetti]

4 hours ago, Michael W said:

Not that the league will necessarily finish this way, but three* of the current top 4 have plastic pitches. The requirements must therefore be causing a lot of circumstances concern, although at least in this case they'll get a season to listen to some persistent whining before grass needs to be installed. 

*this includes Queen's Park, despite the ludicrous lengths they go to in order to avoid playing in their own stadium. 

Lesser Hampden actually has a hybrid pitch, and a very good one at that.

[Enigma]

49 minutes ago, Zanetti said:

Lesser Hampden actually has a hybrid pitch, and a very good one at that.

Shame about the “stand” built for Lord Whatsit’s cronies and not much else.

Edited Monday at 16:58 by Enigma

[TxRover]

18 hours ago, Scottydog said:

The simple answer to the pitch is to do what Oldham did and Killie plan to do, install a hybrid. More durable and community use could continue to some extent.

Unfortunately the cost of that comes in at around £1m, then there's the maintenance that would be substantially more than the synthetic surface requires.

Donner Pies will hence forth be £10 each and the drinks prices in the lounges would take a bump too. 

Natural grass generally costs about half plastic for the install, but would be complicated for us by the existing base, which also reduces the cost to replace the plastic. Natural costs 3-5 times what plastic does a year to maintain, but plastic can be used 3-4 times as much as natural.

Hybrid pitches come in stitched and carpet varieties, which are respectively up to 5% plastic and 8-10% plastic, but the stitched has a 8-10 year lifespan (similar to plastic) and the carpet has a 3 year lifespan. The biggest cost of a hybrid pitch is the yearly stripping and reseeding, and the stitched type that we’d likely look at only provides some additional play/practice time (maybe 1,200-1,400 hours max vs 800) over natural grass. The hybrid pitch would cost about the same as our initial plastic install cost, plus costs associated with modification of the current base layer and installation of an undersoil heating system.

I can’t see allowing much, if any community use of either hybrid or natural surfaces, there’s simply not enough “wear” capacity. If we assume 3-4 hours per match, for about 25 matches a year (100 hours), plus practice at SP for 4 hours, five times a week for 40 weeks (800 hours) we’re already at 900 hours (which is already over the “usual” capacity of a natural surface…and that’s in a more favorable climate than Kirkcaldy).

I suspect the long-term goal of the team would be a hybrid pitch at SP and a one or two pitch training complex nearby for club and community use. (Ideally, there’d be a way to leverage the Balwearie astro and build in the area to the south of that, combined with access under the rail…but that’s very unlikely)

[TxRover]

5 hours ago, Michael W said:

Not that the league will necessarily finish this way, but three* of the current top 4 have plastic pitches. The requirements must therefore be causing a lot of circumstances concern, although at least in this case they'll get a season to listen to some persistent whining before grass needs to be installed. 

*this includes Queen's Park, despite the ludicrous lengths they go to in order to avoid playing in their own stadium. 

There is a subtle rightness about Falkirk playing so well right now and potentially being the first club to get promoted with a plastic pitch, then perhaps fail to find the funds to replace it, and after one year being booted out. It would only be more apropos if they were denied a promotion due to a requirement, as has happened twice before.

[Scottydog]

I recall some years back there was talk of opening up an access going under the railway (under the 1st arch of the viaduct) and for creating a training/community use facility on the land between the car park and the railway line behind the astro at Balwearie HS.

Assuming it's large and level enough to accommodate the facility. As it stands it's unused land for now unless the school plans to expand into it. I would hope the local authority would be amenable to a tie in or joint/shared use.

The big issue would be cost as it wouldn't be cheap.  Not only would you have the cost of building the new facility there's still the matter of re-laying the main pitch at SP.

[mrpaddyx]

Random question - Who goes to both the Rovers and the Flyers? Just curious as I was born and raised in Kirkcaldy but I've never been to an Ice Hockey game in my life.

[grumswall]

1 hour ago, Scottydog said:

I recall some years back there was talk of opening up an access going under the railway (under the 1st arch of the viaduct) and for creating a training/community use facility on the land between the car park and the railway line behind the astro at Balwearie HS.

Assuming it's large and level enough to accommodate the facility. As it stands it's unused land for now unless the school plans to expand into it. I would hope the local authority would be amenable to a tie in or joint/shared use.

The big issue would be cost as it wouldn't be cheap.  Not only would you have the cost of building the new facility there's still the matter of re-laying the main pitch at SP.

I didn't even know there was an archway there. Very random spot to have it in. I'd assume that area is owned by the council and they don't really have a pot to piss in for stuff outwith their vanity projects of dunfermline and glenrothes so it's most likely a non starter. There's also the cost to network rail that will always need to be factored in when we do anything that close to the line. 

In a ideal world the railway stand gets upgraded at the same time the pitch is made in to a hybrid one to lessen the cost of it all but unless we start charging £30 a doner pie, it's all pie in sky... 

[Kooz92]

19 minutes ago, mrpaddyx said:

Random question - Who goes to both the Rovers and the Flyers? Just curious as I was born and raised in Kirkcaldy but I've never been to an Ice Hockey game in my life.

I have season tickets for both. If I had to recommend a game to attend for a first one i'd recommend a game vs Dundee or Glasgow. Scottish derbies are the better games to experience. I will say though, you'll enter the Ice Rink and think you're in Brockville