The State of Ewood Park!

[J*B]

I’ve no idea how true this is, but someone once told me the pitch drains into storage which is pumped into the brook behind the Riverside and they have a problem emptying into the brook if it’s too high? Anyone else ever heard that story?

[Stuart]

1 hour ago, Tom said:

Getting my lunchtime fresh air and this is the current state of the pitch on Green Lane a mile or so up the road from Ewood 

Nice work. Now we just need someone to get a photo of the River Darwen at a trickle and they’ll be banged to rights!!!

In all seriousness though, our pitch is dreadful and I wouldn’t be surprised if the weather forecast brought up a great excuse to postpone - especially with it being BCD.

When one of your players gets injured by the playing surface, something needs to be done urgently. This second home game in a few days was bad timing.

We should expect a fine though.

[Wheelton Blue]

Waggott should be hauled over the coals for this.

It's 100% on his watch.

[1864roverite]

Brings all pitches in January are in better condition than the surface at Ewood!  It’s shocking that the pitch is in such a poor state like Ewood itself, the foundations are slowly but surely eroding as a result of total neglect of the legacy of one man!

[Tom]

33 minutes ago, Stuart said:

Nice work. Now we just need someone to get a photo of the River Darwen at a trickle and they’ll be banged to rights!!!

In all seriousness though, our pitch is dreadful and I wouldn’t be surprised if the weather forecast brought up a great excuse to postpone - especially with it being BCD.

When one of your players gets injured by the playing surface, something needs to be done urgently. This second home game in a few days was bad timing.

We should expect a fine though.

I posted pics of pleasy in the match thread, never looked better!

Rain coming down now but the pictures of the pitches earlier looked shocking 

[SIMON GARNERS 194]

You only need to look at the disgusting photos of the Stadium that started this thread.The Pitch would have received the same lack of maintenance and care.

And then some ferkin genius let's the players train on it!🤪

Edited January 19, 2021 by SIMON GARNERS 194

[JHRover]

Cast your minds back to last summer when Mowbray decided to hand out contract extensions like confetti to squad players for no reason other than they were nice lads. 

A quick, extremely conservative estimate on those costs based on 4 weeks of extensions:

Sam Hart - £2000 a week = £8000 total

Jayson Leutwiler- £2000 a week = £8000 total

Richie Smallwood = £5000 a week = £20,000 total

Dominic Samuel = £4000 a week = £16,000 total

Danny Graham = £10,000 a week = £40,000 total

Six months contract for Ben Gladwin to use Brockhall @ £2k per week = £26,000 

Private jet to Cardiff for a dead rubber match = £30,000.

Fag packet calculations = £150,000 for nothing. Probably a lot more in reality. Maybe that money should have gone to the ground staff and maintenance staff to sort Ewood out. 

Shambles. At least we did the right thing by the players though.

[LeftWinger]

9 minutes ago, JHRover said:

Sam Hart - £2000 a week = £8000 total

Jayson Leutwiler- £2000 a week = £8000 total

Richie Smallwood = £5000 a week = £20,000 total

Dominic Samuel = £4000 a week = £16,000 total

Danny Graham = £10,000 a week = £40,000 total

Six months contract for Ben Gladwin to use Brockhall @ £2k per week = £26,000 

Private jet to Cardiff for a dead rubber match = £30,000.

Fag packet calculations = £150,000 for nothing. Probably a lot more in reality. Maybe that money should have gone to the ground staff and maintenance staff to sort Ewood out. 

Shambles. At least we did the right thing by the players though.

Sh*t makes a good fertiliser - we should have had the greenest pitch in the country with all that on it.

[Mattyblue]

As others have said there’s obviously a dual budget at Ewood. Playing side gets generally what it needs, the last few weeks have seen that with Branthwaite, and little pressure for the manager to sell players.

On the non playing side ‘keeping the lights on’  so we don’t ‘do a Bury’ is seemingly seen as enough. Maybe that’s the correct approach and we are all being precious over weeds, litter,  grime and a Sunday league pitch, the first team has to take priority at a football club after all - though considering much infrastructure spending doesn’t impact FFP and we have ‘optimum owners’ that ‘never refuse a cheque’ it seems strange that the place is now a complete shit tip.

Well it’s caught up with us now and the stripped down husk that is Blackburn Rovers in 2021 is there for all to see. 

[PeteJD13]

1 hour ago, Mattyblue said:

As others have said there’s obviously a dual budget at Ewood. Playing side gets generally what it needs, the last few weeks have seen that with Branthwaite, and little pressure for the manager to sell players.

On the non playing side ‘keeping the lights on’  so we don’t ‘do a Bury’ is seemingly seen as enough. Maybe that’s the correct approach and we are all being precious over weeds, litter,  grime and a Sunday league pitch, the first team has to take priority at a football club after all - though considering much infrastructure spending doesn’t impact FFP and we have ‘optimum owners’ that ‘never refuse a cheque’ it seems strange that the place is now a complete shit tip.

Well it’s caught up with us now and the stripped down husk that is Blackburn Rovers in 2021 is there for all to see. 

this is so true, yet you go onto the facebook groups and any post saying what's happened today is a disgrace is pilled open by the same usual suspects. The ones who won't here any criticism against Mowbray or the tea,, but they'll happily slag Gallagher and bell off every week. What's happened today is a shambles and shows the lack of care and attention paid to club infrastructure 

[OldEwoodBlue]

One word.

"Embarrassing"

 

Edited January 19, 2021 by OldEwoodBlue

[OldEwoodBlue]

Stats... when was last postponement at Ewood for a waterlogged pitch ?

And then it's never rained this much in all those years ? Rubbish.

Groundsman is probably at Brockhall today on his rota....

like when he was at Ewood the day we had a bit of frost.

Just unfortunate bad luck eh.

[Stuart]

2 hours ago, Mattyblue said:

As others have said there’s obviously a dual budget at Ewood. Playing side gets generally what it needs, the last few weeks have seen that with Branthwaite, and little pressure for the manager to sell players.

On the non playing side ‘keeping the lights on’  so we don’t ‘do a Bury’ is seemingly seen as enough. Maybe that’s the correct approach and we are all being precious over weeds, litter,  grime and a Sunday league pitch, the first team has to take priority at a football club after all - though considering much infrastructure spending doesn’t impact FFP and we have ‘optimum owners’ that ‘never refuse a cheque’ it seems strange that the place is now a complete shit tip.

Well it’s caught up with us now and the stripped down husk that is Blackburn Rovers in 2021 is there for all to see. 

I don’t feel I’m being precious. I feel I’m being lied to about the kind of club we are.

Even ignoring the utter lack of ‘respect for Jack Walker’s legacy’ we should as a bare minimum expect a playing surface befitting a team in the top half of the Championship and some pride in the appearance of the stadium. There will be League Two clubs with more pride that Waggott’s Rovers.

For shame!

[Stonesrick]

So when this pandemic is all over and things return to normal and supporters are allowed back in the stadium and now that I am in my mid-late 60’s...... will I be enticed to renew my season ticket, put up with traffic jams through Preston on a Saturday afternoon or a Wednesday night match, have difficulty parking my car, drinking a can of fizzy John Smiths bitter at £4.20 a can, to watch a confused group of players, with an even more confusing manager, when the club can’t be bothered to take care of the Stadium and the pitch. 
 

Respecting Jack Walkers legacy and memory? My @r$e

 

 

 

Edited January 19, 2021 by Stonesrick
Vocabulary

[Proudtobeblue&white]

Crying shame to see PL pitches/other Championship matches going ahead. It's teeming down in City's match, yet the pitch is holding up well.

[EwoodGlory]

Etihad pitch doesn't look great tbf 

[windymiller7]

5 minutes ago, EwoodGlory said:

Etihad pitch doesn't look great tbf 

It's like a bowling green compared to Ewood 

And its had 36hrs more rain on it than ours had before we called the game off yesterday. 

Edited January 20, 2021 by windymiller7

[JHRover]

Despite being yards away from the Trent and concerns about the game tonight Forest managed to overcome the conditions to play Middlesbrough and their pitch didn't look bad.

Amazing how these other clubs can overcome geography and the weather in ways Rovers can't.

[StevenSK]

47 minutes ago, JHRover said:

Despite being yards away from the Trent and concerns about the game tonight Forest managed to overcome the conditions to play Middlesbrough and their pitch didn't look bad.

Amazing how these other clubs can overcome geography and the weather in ways Rovers can't.

When the pressure is on and the fans have turned, a defeat to Swansea could have killed TM off and been very very likely to have happened. 
 

Extra rest for Rovers, we now have a Boro side who’s lost twice in four days  who’ve played tonight and a side easier to beat.

Almost on purpose if I was cynical 

[Mattyblue]

https://www.rovers.co.uk/news/2021/january/club-statement--ewood-park-pitch/

Interesting divergence of views here. Trevor Wilkin and the ground staff obviously want a new pitch, ‘30 years old’, ‘we need to go to the next level’ they obviously realise that it’s just sticking plasters otherwise, even in normal years.

Waggott? It will only be ‘renovated’ in the summer.

For our benevolent Cheque Sign-ers, why only ‘renovations’ for capital spending that doesn’t impact FFP, but is certainly impacting the team and our reputation?

Edited January 21, 2021 by Mattyblue

[rigger]

11 minutes ago, Mattyblue said:

https://www.rovers.co.uk/news/2021/january/club-statement--ewood-park-pitch/

Interesting divergence of views here. Trevor Wilkin and the ground staff obviously want a new pitch, ‘30 years old’, ‘we need to go to the next level’ they obviously realise that it’s just sticking plasters otherwise, even in normal years.

Waggott? It will only be ‘renovated’ in the summer.

For our benevolent Cheque Sign-ers, why only ‘renovations’ for capital spending that doesn’t impact FFP, but is certainly impacting the team and our reputation?

It depends what he means by, " It will only be ‘renovated’ in the summer". It could mean that the pitch is only being renovated , during this summer. Or it could mean that, the pitch is not going to be renovated till the summer. That's before we get on to what he means by renovation

[JHRover]

We can be absolutely certain that if Waggott is behind the 'renovation' it will be a cheap and cheerful patch up job like every other summer and he'll be relying on nice weather and 2 months of no football more than anything else to sort it.

Sharpe could really set the cat among the pigeons by ringing up Andy Holt and asking him how much Stanley have spent on their pitch the last 4 years. That would hammer things home I'm sure when compared to Rovers.

Sharpe could also wind it up by asking Waggott whether the new pitch or new Riverside stand will get priority. Neither likely to happen for a very long time.

The only way any serious work will be done is if the owners are shamed into action or Mowbray brings it up as a big problem.

I hope Mowbray won't even be here by then but if he is i hope he will have bigger things on his plate than the state of the pitch and will be clinging to his job. He's not going to start making additional demands stretching into 7 figure investments.

I've spoken to Trevor Wilkin a few times and I've no doubt he works his socks off and has always done his best. Approaching 40 years at the club is some effort.

Same goes for many others who work hard but unfortunately when you have owners who couldn't give a stuff and bullshitters in the boardroom there's only one way things end up.

 

[Bigdoggsteel]

Even if's freezing though, they shouldn't need to leave the undersoil heating on all day, surely it can be timed so that its not on the whole time, but also that the pitch doesn't freeze? Leaving it on for a week non stop seems excessive and would certainly loosen it up 

[bluebruce]

I'm confused that the statement says the pitch is now 30 years old, so we are now looking at relaying it.

Didn't we relay it a few years ago? I could absolutely swear I remember that happening.

[only2garners]

There's a world of difference (and cost) between relaying or reseeding a pitch and a full renovation. Whilst there will have been regular reseedings the whole pitch structure down to the gravel and undersoil heating was last done in 1992.