It’s a mud bath
Last night I sat down after my big Sunday roast, nursing an injury I picked up that morning while playing for my local town, sipping away a pint of beer while watching the Wigan v Arsenal game on TV.
It started badly as Steve Bruce said live on TV ‘We are embarrassed about the pitch, it simply is unacceptable!’ Well that was the start of that and it proved to be yet another title slip up from the Gunners, being held to a 0-0 draw to relegation strugglers at the JJB mud bath.
So to hear Arsene Wenger complain about the pitch and put blame on it was inevitable, but for once I actually agree. The top club managers always seem to complain about something when they lose, whether it was the ref, the pitch, or even the other team being a little too hard, there is always an excuse. So when Arsene said the pitch cost them the game I actually tend to agree, Arsenal play on the best pitch in Europe, and have won awards for countless years for having such a great quality playing surface.
This raises the question of why are some of these pitches so poor quality? Many will argue that the cost of the maintenance is just far too high, and I do agree, but I cannot agree when they spent £5.5 million on Emile Heskey. If Wigan played on a surface like Arsenals’ every week I guarantee they would be in a better situation then they are now, and let’s face it, Heskey’s high goal tally of 1 goal this season and only 10 goals in 54 games (Worse than Alan Smith) doesn’t exactly explain why the £5.5 million was spent on him.
So this quality of playing surface is not only slowing down the team but also look at the effects it has on the players. A game of rugby was played on Wigan’s Pitch just days before the game against Arsenal (The rugby lines were not removed either), The scrums and mauls had turned up the pitch that bad that I can honestly say the pitch I played on this Sunday morning was better quality.
Why doesn’t the FA step in and deal with situations like this? The pitch was a disgrace and unacceptable (as explained by Steve Bruce) so why wasn’t anything done about it? Why don’t these clubs spend a couple of million a year in getting a perfect pitch instead of buying fat overrated has-beens? Well your guess is as good as mine, but I seriously hope in the future the FA introduce strict rules that a pitch has to be of a high standard. We are meant to have the best League in the world but let’s face it, we definitely do not have the best pitches, and how does the FA expect us to host a World Cup if some of our ‘Top 20′ grounds are a mud bath?
Wembley is another perfect example. Anyone dare to recall the 3-2 loss to Croatia? Some tool at the FA thought it was a great idea to rent it out to the American Footballers for a night, so come on, sort it out, Football & Rugby cannot be played at the same grounds a few days apart, it is a disgrace!
