Pitch battle

The battered Oldham pitch

ATHLETIC’S pitch is well beyond its sell-by date - and head groundsman Lee Williams prays no more heavy rain will arrive before the end of the season to ruin his efforts.

Williams, who was recognised last season as having prepared one of the best three surfaces in all of Sky Bet League One, says the current pitch would normally have been replaced by now. Instead, the recent weather has made the ground staff’s job almost impossible.

Twenty-nine tonnes of sand were pushed into the the pitch recently to help drainage. But relentless rain through the night forced the postponement of last week’s home game against Blackpool - a kick in the teeth for the grounds staff.

“I’ve never known the rain to be as relentless as this season, in my 17 years as a groundsman,” he said.

“It’s always upsetting when games are postponed, but no more so for me and my team who have worked their socks off for hours.”

The pitch also got into the top three under Williams in 2011 and it may be that to complete the hat-trick, extensive work will be needed to lay a new pitch in the summer.

“The current, Desso, pitch is beyond its expected life span by three or four years, but it has retained a good quality because of the way we’ve looked after it,” he added.

“The real issue is the top three inches of the playing surface. Below this the drainage is as good as ever.

“Unfortunately, pretty much all our match days over the last three months have fallen on torrential weather days. This has compacted and damaged that top three inches. We’ve even had an agronomist down from the Sportsturf Research Institute to provide an independent view and further advice.

“For now, we have to find a way of managing it through to the end of this season. This has already involved putting thousands of holes down to a depth of four inches and spreading sand into them to open up the good lower drainage.

“The one thing we can’t control is rain. Last weekend’s game it rained constantly from 6pm on Friday to the moment the referee postponed the game.

Wigan, who play Athletic on Saturday, have this week re-layed their pitch after too great a deterioration due to the weather.