3 g pitches health fears.

Well there may be doubts about causing cancer, what I can say 100% is.. they cause lots of injuries...Much more so than grass.?

3 months in ...WHAT do you guys and gals think, is it a good thing or what ?

Personally I'm grass all the way.Yet ,can see the benefits when the bad weather comes and games called off, we should be OK..

Well Boselecta, think it has been a success and yet another positive from the cash investments made in transforming the club. You probably could point to injuries and there seemed to be a spate of them in the first few home games but it would probably be more realistic to point to the transition from preseason to the impact of moving into the blood and thunder of competitive games. The move to more training has probably taken a time to bed in with the players physically as well. Hopefully coming out the other side now.

You would hope that our pellets, given it is brand new 3g would be vetted away from it being shredded tyres. Seems a somewhat stupid approach from the industry in this day and age given the widely understood manufacturing process around what goes into producing tyres.

Pitch is particularly good when it is wet and seen some glimpses of how good it can be. Just hope we are not pressing ahead with the one at St John Fishers. Would be a big over reach in terms of saturated demand, especially given that Harrogate High were planning on building new 3g pitches.

Reach of the club into the community is another positive not to be underestimated. The pitch helps position the club more into the wider appreciation of the town.

Though the debacle and impact on volunteers enforcing the nonsensical aspect of the smoking ban because of it is less welcome. Even more so the scatter gun approach of trying to justify it, file that under BS textbook spray, especially in the context of the inconsistency with other clubs with the same pitches not imposing one, Maidstone apart this season, including the whole of Holland even in the pro leagues that do not have to ban smoking but yet have these pitches.

The worry is when it needs replacing and the investment needed to do that. All well and good whilst Simon remains manager but a real possibility that this backing that paid for it will not be around once he does go. Yes it is meant to be self-funding, using Maidstone’s model but they are much bigger in terms of commercial reach and fan base wise and a slight worry there will not be enough takings and bookings to pay for its regular replacement, especially given the context of other pitches in the town and the potential for demand decline. Replacement that seems to be needed more regularly than the stated 5 years given Maidstone’s recent new pitch laid. Adds a fairly sizeable ongoing expenditure onto the clubs balance sheet every few years that we have to surpass.

Due to this it would be understandable perhaps to update the fans once or twice a year on the commercial status of the pitch given that the current custodians have attached a potentially profitable but nonetheless financial long term big outgoing that the club will be tied long beyond the tenure, aspirations, motivations and good will of various people currently at the club who have delivered the new pitch.

AGM next week?