Addressing the Elephant in the room that dare not speak its name

As muddy gives way to frozen pitches our turnaround in footballing fortunes faces it's sternest test.  Not from the teams lining up to try to stand in the way of Cox's warriors.....instead from the Achilles heel that is our playing surface at Latimer Park.  Rescheduled and rescheduled, rescheduled fixtures are littering the path between us and our hoped-for mid-table obscurity.

We are now at a footballing level where the ground capacities, facilities, and playing surfaces come under not just more scrutiny, but rules that can result in fines, loss of points and even relegation.  The club is addressing what needs to be done as an absolute minimum to ensure if relegation comes this season at least it will be on footballing terms only.

But, the pitch.....  After a century of being used to the well grassed, easily draining Rockingham Road, playing our games on this glue pot is a big culture shock.  It would appear that the field where we play couldn't be less conducive to a quality footballing surface.  Deep, non-draining clay, topped with a narrow layer of mud does not a good football pitch make.

The number of times the main pitch is used must also impact greatly on the condition.  There are games on it 2 or 3 times per week, every week.  When you start with a suspect pitch, this is not going to improve matters.

This may be an incredibly unpopular suggestion, and seem stupefyingly ungrateful, but can we really still afford to let Burton Park Wanders play on Latimer Park's main pitch?  We're fully aware that were it not for their initial invite to share the facility we would either have gone to the wall, or be plying our trade at Steal Park at God alone knows what level.

As a club we will always be grateful for BPW for offering us a home when we were without one.  They didn't have to do this, but chose to help us at our time of greatest need.  A gesture that won't be forgotten.

From our initial borrowing of the facilities at Latimer Park, the Poppies have improved the facilities enormously.  All the seating / terracing / hard standing / lighting are down to us.  We have even taken over the lease on the ground from BPW, effectively (from what I've heard) making them our tenants now.  Would BPW still be going had the Poppies not done all of this?  Who knows, but it must get increasingly hard for very small clubs to survive in ever more professional leagues.

I'm not suggesting BPW be turfed out of their home completely.  Could not one of the other pitches at Latimer Park be brought up to an acceptable UCL standard?  Before we arrived the club didn't have floodlights of hard standing.  What would be the difference?

Could this be done?  I don't know.  But it is becoming clear that something needs to be happen.  When teams can get games called off against us because they don't fancy the battle it won't be long before the Poppies could be sanctioned by the National League for their playing surface.  Having BPW play on a different pitch is one answer.  I'd be happy to hear others?

Genuine photograph of Latimer Park

(c) Russell Slade c/o Hereford FC