Sons' sorrow

[Nowhereman]

Personally I’d rather take the postponements than have an artificial surface

[optimistic]

Wouldn’t the artificial surface just freeze up almost as bad as our grass pitch does, due to where it sits geographically?

A lot of the teams above are surely more surrounded by housing or buildings?

[Bring Back Paddy Flannery]

1 hour ago, Nowhereman said:

Personally I’d rather take the postponements than have an artificial surface

I mean the list of pros far outweigh the cons. You guarantee most (if not all) matches going ahead, you can rent it out, it’s another surface for community use and youth teams to train/play on, we can train on it thus avoiding extra costs for renting out training facilities, you avoid playing on a tattie field during spells of poor weather if you do manage to get games to go ahead. 

If some form of funding could be secured it would be a no brainer. So far we’ve had 6 home Saturday fixtures scheduled and only managed to complete 1. The current pitch is hindering us. 

[FifeSons]

A quick google suggests a plastic pitch costs between £300k-£500k.

[microdave]

I mean the list of pros far outweigh the cons. You guarantee most (if not all) matches going ahead, you can rent it out, it’s another surface for community use and youth teams to train/play on, we can train on it thus avoiding extra costs for renting out training facilities, you avoid playing on a tattie field during spells of poor weather if you do manage to get games to go ahead. 
If some form of funding could be secured it would be a no brainer. So far we’ve had 6 home Saturday fixtures scheduled and only managed to complete 1. The current pitch is hindering us. 

We've had three postponements due to the weather(Falkirk was due to their betfred cup game), so it's not a ludicrous situation imo. I think the only reason folk are getting their knickers in a twist is because of the late start to the season. If we'd started in August and had a full first quarter with all the games going ahead then nobody would be bothering their arse about a few postponements.

[FifeSons]

If we did somehow have hundreds of thousands of pounds to spend, I’d much rather see it go into the playing squad than a new pitch.

[super-son]

If we did somehow have hundreds of thousands of pounds to spend, I’d much rather see it go into the playing squad than a new pitch.

There is no chance of Dumbarton having hundreds of thousands of pounds to spend. The question is whether we can get local funding or grants to install a 4G pitch. You don't get local funding or grants for paying wages.

[super-son]

We've had three postponements due to the weather(Falkirk was due to their betfred cup game), so it's not a ludicrous situation imo. I think the only reason folk are getting their knickers in a twist is because of the late start to the season. If we'd started in August and had a full first quarter with all the games going ahead then nobody would be bothering their arse about a few postponements.

100%

I don't think there is as big a problem with the pitch as has been made out.

We got a new groundsman in who has possibly made a mistake by not ventidraining the park at the correct time. Park was waterlogged.

We then had really bad stormy weather which resulted in flooding and 50+ mph winds. An astro park wouldn't have helped with the wind.

3rd postponement is a week of minus temperatures where a large number of other games in Scotland are also called off.

Everyone needs to calm down a bit.

[Bring Back Paddy Flannery]

4 hours ago, FifeSons said:

If we did somehow have hundreds of thousands of pounds to spend, I’d much rather see it go into the playing squad than a new pitch.

I’m not entirely sure what part of trying to get a community grant you aren’t grasping, which I have now been informed has helped numerous clubs pay for one in the past, with the club covering 10-20% of the cost. It’s still a fair whack of dough but it isn’t quite as ludicrous a suggestion you are making it out to be. The long term benefits would be worth it. 

[Bring Back Paddy Flannery]

5 hours ago, microdave said:

folk are getting their knickers in a twist

 

4 hours ago, super-son said:

Everyone needs to calm down a bit.

Other than a few roaster Clyde fans/one Airdrie fan, everyone is perfectly calm and their knickers are fully untwisted.

Edited January 3, 2021 by Bring Back Paddy Flannery

[O'Kelly Isley III]

I’m not entirely sure what part of trying to get a community grant you aren’t grasping, which I have now been informed has helped numerous clubs pay for one in the past, with the club covering 10-20% of the cost. It’s still a fair whack of dough but it isn’t quite as ludicrous a suggestion you are making it out to be. The long term benefits would be worth it. 

I would imagine that community grants would have been easier to access pre-pandemic than now when such funding is likely to be much lower priority. Secondly, if we are to believe a recent article in the Lennox Herald then WDC is still interested in the club vacating the current site in favour of yet more housing, suggesting that they wouldn't be too amenable. Thirdly, as Dumbarton Rock has already pointed out, the operation would be more complex, ie more expensive than almost every other club mentioned - even if a grant was awarded the club can't afford that shortfall. And did anyone notice that the Stenny v Stirling game was abandoned yesterday at half-time due to the artificial pitch freezing, on a surface that has become notorious ? It's good that everyone is keeping calm as there is no magic solution here, despite what the experts at Clyde and Airdrie may claim.

[The Moonster]

24 minutes ago, O'Kelly Isley III said:

4 hours ago, Bring Back Paddy Flannery said:

I’m not entirely sure what part of trying to get a community grant you aren’t grasping, which I have now been informed has helped numerous clubs pay for one in the past, with the club covering 10-20% of the cost. It’s still a fair whack of dough but it isn’t quite as ludicrous a suggestion you are making it out to be. The long term benefits would be worth it. 

I would imagine that community grants would have been easier to access pre-pandemic than now when such funding is likely to be much lower priority. Secondly, if we are to believe a recent article in the Lennox Herald then WDC is still interested in the club vacating the current site in favour of yet more housing, suggesting that they wouldn't be too amenable. Thirdly, as Dumbarton Rock has already pointed out, the operation would be more complex, ie more expensive than almost every other club mentioned - even if a grant was awarded the club can't afford that shortfall. And did anyone notice that the Stenny v Stirling game was abandoned yesterday at half-time due to the artificial pitch freezing, on a surface that has become notorious ? It's good that everyone is keeping calm as there is no magic solution here, despite what the experts at Clyde and Airdrie may claim.

The Stenny match was abandoned due to a head knock I think.

[O'Kelly Isley III]

The Stenny match was abandoned due to a head knock I think.

Apologies if this is the case, I saw it reported as a pitch issue.

[Jan Vojáček]

26 minutes ago, The Moonster said:

The Stenny match was abandoned due to a head knock I think.

 

10 minutes ago, O'Kelly Isley III said:

26 minutes ago, The Moonster said:

The Stenny match was abandoned due to a head knock I think.

Apologies if this is the case, I saw it reported as a pitch issue.

It was the pitch. The referee used the head knock break to reassess the pitch.

 

[BallochSonsFan]

I looked into artificial pitches when we were meeting with Brabco as it formed part of their plan for the stadium move.

You can get a cheap pitch for about £350,000. Moray (if I remember correctly) council did a study into replacing some of their schools pitches with a better quality of artificial surface. They were budgeting for about £600,000. The English FA report into artificial surfaces spoke about competition-grade surfaces, lights, maintenance equipment and the ground work needed to get a good quality surface costing between £800,000 and £1,200,000.

Even at £500,000 an artificial pitch has a finite lifespan. Regular maintenance. Budget for a total replacement every 15 years or so if you want it to remain playable. I'd sure that there could be some way of funding an artificial surface, even if it was a combination of fan funding and some kind of sports grants. The big problem is that Brabco have already said that they'd block any fundraising that involves diluting their shareholding. So a share issue would be a non starter. The other problem is that if fans were going to raise upwards of £100,000 (if we're looking at a 20% contribution) then £100k could be better spent on other upgrades to the stadium that would potentially help bring in more revenues. £100k could make a difference to the current pitch.

Unless we were going to bring in a ton of revenue by renting out the pitch, the finances for artificial at Dumbarton just don't make sense.

[sarti pooh]

5 hours ago, Bring Back Paddy Flannery said:

 

Other than a few roaster Clyde fans/one Airdrie fan, everyone is perfectly calm and their knickers are fully untwisted.

To see real knickers in a twist have a look at the Bairns fans in their East Fife game thread.

[FifeSons]

7 hours ago, Bring Back Paddy Flannery said:

I’m not entirely sure what part of trying to get a community grant you aren’t grasping, which I have now been informed has helped numerous clubs pay for one in the past, with the club covering 10-20% of the cost. It’s still a fair whack of dough but it isn’t quite as ludicrous a suggestion you are making it out to be. The long term benefits would be worth it. 

That’s based on the assumption that a community grant is possible, which I’d be dubious about.

[Bring Back Paddy Flannery]

3 minutes ago, FifeSons said:

That’s based on the assumption that a community grant is possible, which I’d be dubious about.

I’ve never assumed it is definitely possible but I’ve also never heard anything about us attempting to get one in the past (we may well have and it just hasn’t been made public knowledge). I’m simply suggesting that I’d like to see the club attempt to go down that route in the future. As OK mentioned earlier it would probably be fairly hard to come by in the current climate but I’d certainly like to see us sound out our options when everything calms down, whenever that may be. I think if an affordable solution can be found then the club would benefit from an artificial surface. 

[Bring Back Paddy Flannery]

1 hour ago, BallochSonsFan said:

I looked into artificial pitches when we were meeting with Brabco as it formed part of their plan for the stadium move.

You can get a cheap pitch for about £350,000. Moray (if I remember correctly) council did a study into replacing some of their schools pitches with a better quality of artificial surface. They were budgeting for about £600,000. The English FA report into artificial surfaces spoke about competition-grade surfaces, lights, maintenance equipment and the ground work needed to get a good quality surface costing between £800,000 and £1,200,000.

Even at £500,000 an artificial pitch has a finite lifespan. Regular maintenance. Budget for a total replacement every 15 years or so if you want it to remain playable. I'd sure that there could be some way of funding an artificial surface, even if it was a combination of fan funding and some kind of sports grants. The big problem is that Brabco have already said that they'd block any fundraising that involves diluting their shareholding. So a share issue would be a non starter. The other problem is that if fans were going to raise upwards of £100,000 (if we're looking at a 20% contribution) then £100k could be better spent on other upgrades to the stadium that would potentially help bring in more revenues. £100k could make a difference to the current pitch.

Unless we were going to bring in a ton of revenue by renting out the pitch, the finances for artificial at Dumbarton just don't make sense.

You make some good points regarding Brabco and the fact the ground could be doing with some fairly urgent upgrades aside from the pitch - the floodlights being one example. Those are most definitely stumbling blocks, along with any issues regarding the fact our pitch appears to be sinking into oblivion at the away end. I do wonder how much longer we can get away with having that fairly horrendous dip in the park.

On your last point - I think if other similarly sized clubs can make it work then so can we. I think there would be fairly high demand for a good quality surface that local teams can train on and our recent partnership with Dumbarton Utd could see them become ‘residents’ of the stadium. It’s certainly not something that could realisticly happen any time soon but it’s something we could explore and push for in the future. 

[pleslie99]

Has anyone ever considered us moving location, building a new stadium somewhere in the town with artificial pitch etc. Maybe say somewhere such as youngs farm, which seems like a perfect location with ample access for traffic, for example? Just a suggestion, maybe someone could pass this idea onto the owners..........