WEATHER AGAIN

[darlo reborn]

Any chance that the game could be off as just seen forecast and not to good

[windyforce4]

Pitch will cope with a shower. Anything more than that keep fingers crossed. Main worry is the wind. Such an open ground a strong wind will spoil the game. Memories of the Bishop fixture when the majority of the game was played in the bottom corner of the pitch.....

[Darlo_Pete]

Pretty steady rain for the last few hours, no surprise the game was called off.

[darlo999]

Just shows how crap the pitch is. It hasn't rained that much

[LoidLucan]

Virtually all of the Northern League Divs 1 and 2 are unaffected by this morning's rain. The HP pitch is shockingly fragile now and seems to be waterlogged at the drop of a hat.

[QUAKERMAN2]

Virtually all of the Northern League Divs 1 and 2 unaffected by this morning's rain. The HP pitch is shockingly fragile now and seems to be waterlogged at the drop of a hat.

Why don't BAFC invest some of the £300k gift they recently received plus the rent they are getting from us on pitch covers , surely they cannot continue with that "pitch"in its present form without spending money.Totally beyond a joke now and the sooner we get back to Darlo and hopefully playing on a decent surface the better.Gutted this game was off today as a win would have put massive pressure on the teams above us particularly Blyth.Thanks BAFC for helping us but time to move on now.

[jjljks]

Virtually all of the Northern League Divs 1 and 2 unaffected by this morning's rain. The HP pitch is shockingly fragile now and seems to be waterlogged at the drop of a hat.

Must be a shower hat

[onewayup]

Is it bishops fault that the rain is so heavy, I,m just thankful that they have allowed us to play there, the club have in the main done very well at Bishop Auckland, who's to say what would have happened or where the club would be at this stage had we been at another ground.How they spend their windfall is surely down to them.I have no complaints against bishop Auckland at all.

[feethamslad]

Is it bishops fault that the rain is so heavy, I,m just thankful that they have allowed us to play there, the club have in the main done very well at Bishop Auckland, who's to say what would have happened or where the club would be at this stage had we been at another ground.How they spend their windfall is surely down to them.I have no complaints against bishop Auckland at all.

+1

[coles]

I wonder what happened to the pitch covers that we brought over from the arena

[theoriginalfatcat]

I wonder what happened to the pitch covers that we brought over from the arena

Aren't these the thick plastic sheets, that are usually roughly folded up and dumped to the side/behind of the seats at the petrol station end?

There has to be more to using covers than meets the eye, or perhaps they only keep frost off?

[Darlo_Pete]

One of the main problems with HP is that it has to contend with nearly double the number of games, that most pitches in this region have to contend with. I'm sure that if Bishop or us had exclusive use of HP, then that club wouldn't be in the pickle that both clubs now find themselves in.

[lo36789]

Sorry but the game was on at 10oclock and then it rained. Covers wouldnt have done a great deal as they wouldn't have been on when it rained anyway.

The ground is clearly saturated and again I am not sure pitch covers would have done a great deal to stop that. Isn't HP down from the Sainsburys car park so any run off there will probably be soaked into the ground by the pitch anyway.

[quakerste]

Having two teams playing on the pitch or Sainsburys next door has nothing to do with the waterlogging. The simple fact is not enough ground works or drainage was done when the ground was built.

Years ago thousands of tonnes of shale was dumped on the land, if you recall there was a giant mound there which the locals used their scramble bikes on. This was removed and levelled however the sub surface was like concrete. Several trenches and drainage channels were then added but not nearly enough, then a couple of inches of soil and sand was added to dress the surface.

Until many more drainage channels are added this will always be a problem.

[coles]

True covers wouldn't help the rain but they would help with frost unfortunately our issues this season are down to rain. The issue is that the ground is saturated and is not getting chance to dry out before another wet spell. Just one of those things I think it's fair to say that the drainage is not adequate enough to all playing on the pitch every week. Bishop don't need to improve it as it is probably adequate for them when only they use it.
We have to play the cards we have been dealt 4 years ago if someone offered me this situation born out of the ashes of the Singh era is of snapped there hands off

[darlo reborn]

The main trouble now is Bishop have had games postponed as well as us so the pitch could be played on 5 times a week to get fixtures played by the end of the season and that`s if no more games are lost to weather which is very unlikely

[princes town]

Having two teams playing on the pitch or Sainsburys next door has nothing to do with the waterlogging. The simple fact is not enough ground works or drainage was done when the ground was built.

Years ago thousands of tonnes of shale was dumped on the land, if you recall there was a giant mound there which the locals used their scramble bikes on. This was removed and levelled however the sub surface was like concrete. Several trenches and drainage channels were then added but not nearly enough, then a couple of inches of soil and sand was added to dress the surface.

Until many more drainage channels are added this will always be a problem.

This is also my view. Building on industrial land is rife with risk. It is not natural land. I've lived in areas of the country which have way more rain than we have but nowhere near this level of cancellations. The most worrying tweet of Saturday was 'the pitch being perfect at 9 but not at 12.20'. That is an issue of drainage not overuse. I'm not going to criticise bishop as they have been very good to us but the fact is the pitch has acute drainage problems.

[LoidLucan]

I think that's a fair summary and it's something to bear in mind when the pitch is relaid (hopefully) at our new home. You need to do things right (even though it may cost a little more at the outset) to help avoid the possibility of frequent (and costly) problems in the future. I know this is not industrial land we are talking about but there are lesson to be learned.

[Robbie Painter]

I think people are being very generous to Bishop here. They knew all about the drainage issues 2 summers ago when they had the pitch relaid but chose to do nothing to fix it.

That decision has now cost us thousands of £££ in lost revenue and unrecoverable costs.

[quakerste]

I said a couple of seasons ago we should have arranged a friendly against Bishop and all the proceeds from the attendance put towards the cost of the drainage. I'm sure this would have almost covered the cost of resolving the issue.

[HarrytheQuaker]

I said a couple of seasons ago we should have arranged a friendly against Bishop and all the proceeds from the attendance put towards the cost of the drainage. I'm sure this would have almost covered the cost of resolving the issue.

And that would of drawn a bumper crowd, I don't think so

[satchmo76]

Is HP so bad now that any rain on the day means a match is off?

[Robbie Painter]

Is HP so bad now that any rain on the day means a match is off?

Anything above a light shower, yes.

[Darlo_Pete]

Is HP so bad now that any rain on the day means a match is off?

Anything above a light shower, yes.

It depends how dry the pitch is. But in it's current state any rain is likely to force a postponement. Otherwise you'd end up in the same situation as Wigan Athletic now fine themselves in. Wigan Warriors played their first home game of the season on Friday evening and to say the pitch now resembles a ploughed field is being kind. So their pitch is now ruined for probably a good month. The same thing would happen if we played a game in iffy conditions.

[Darlo_Pete]

Tomorrow's game must be under serious threat from the weather.

[al_quaker]

Pitch inspection at 9am.

Regardless of whether it chews the pitch up, if we can get it on we have to do it. We don't have any more free midweeks, so if tomorrow is off it will mean 3 games in a week at somepoint.

Furthermore, if Stourbridge beat Nantwich in the FA Trophy, our game against them on the 27th would be postponed, meaning yet another game to rearrange. Ridiculous.

[TinShedDarloFan]

Very little rain forecast so its looking like a case of will the pitch drain enough in time for tomorrow

[theoriginalfatcat]

Another venue should have been looked at for a few home games during our Nov/Dec/half of Jan lay off. Some on here (lo for one) said it couldn't be done but I still disagree. Other clubs have done it, so why can't we?

There is now no room at all for error - any more called off games at Heritage park and it's going to cost us, if it doesn't cost anyway

[LoidLucan]

I think it's highly likely that there will be more postponed games at HP, given how easily it succumbs now.

[TinShedDarloFan]

Lad on twitter reckons theres still alot of standing water on the pitch as of 3pm today, one would hope the groundstaff are planning on working on the pitch to try make it playable