The Egg chasers relegation

[bobby1413]

Just watching a bit of the Ospreys rugby game on sky sports 1.

They play in Swanseas stadium and their pitch looks lovely. Healthy green, no bald patches.

Why is Readings so sh*t then?

[Muskrat]

Because of the Rugby?

[bobby1413]

Because of the Rugby?

Not sure if serious ...

EDIT: my original post is saying Swansea's pitch is good and is also used for football+rugby.

Ours is rubbish and like a grass less rectangle of mud.

So saying "ours is rubbish because of rugby" wasn't really the response I was expecting. Why is Swanseas not as bad?

[Nameless]

Possible reasons
1. It's not better but they used green dye for TV to hide bare patches
2. It's a different type of pitch (not a Desso)
3. They spend more on maintaining it
4. It has better drainage
5. It doesn't have a fungal infestation killing the grass
6. It has less usage (fewer Prem games, fewer cup games, no U23 games
7. It has been relaid more recently
8. It's a proper shared stadium, in fact isn't it council owned ? Means better cooperation between the clubs, better planning etc
9. Stadium design/alignment/ sun/ wind is different
10. Local microclimate is different

Some, all , or none may apply !

[Sutekh]

The primary reason for Reading's cr@p pitch this season is the fact it needs replacing as it is coming to the end of its lifecycle. Thought that had been pointed out several times already.

One therefore is expecting the pitch to be replaced in the summer.

If there was no rugby played on the pitch there would be another year or two that could be added to its lifecycle

Irrespective of whether rugby and football are played on it or not it needs replacing every so many years

Guess it would have been done last summer if the club had had the money available

[Nameless]

The primary reason for Reading's cr@p pitch this season is the fact it needs replacing as it is coming to the end of its lifecycle. Thought that had been pointed out several times already.

One therefore is expecting the pitch to be replaced in the summer.

If there was no rugby played on the pitch there would be another year or two that could be added to its lifecycle

Irrespective of whether rugby and football are played on it or not it needs replacing every so many years

Guess it would have been done last summer if the club had had the money available

And as has been pointed out similarly, Irish pay a large chunk of the cost of replacement. I had heard that with the future of Irish at the stadium in doubt there was discussion about whether Irish would be contributing to the next relaying. You would hope that the contract is watertight on this.

I also understand that the pitch is within it's lifespan still , but close to the end. There is also an issue with drainage in some areas where the pitch has become compacted (obviously only in the areas where a scrum has taken place....)

[AthleticoSpizz]

ftao Paul(the royal)

Not really sure why I should be so "embarrassed" about asking why the non-playing areas should be so sparce? But here's the opportunity to tell us

[Hound]

More whinging from Irish - I very much doubt they will be up for contributing to relaying the pitch next year:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/rugby-union/39334085

They really seem to just want to go. Surely some crappy club in west London would have them to for a year or two to keep them quiet - QPR maybe?

Regarding the non-playing part of the pitch - did the half marathon on the weekend and noticed the boards put down for the runners went right up to the touchline. Not going to help it at all - I'm wondering if there have been any other events like that that may caused it to be such a state. Also got to have a good look at the pitch - it really isn't in a great state

[Nameless]

How is that whinging ?
It's obvious that renting a stadium for a few hours is not going to make you any money, especially if you are daft enough to spend several seasons playing badly and driving your supporters away ! They need to be able to earn from beer / pie sales, non match day activities etc and at the moment I doubt they take enough gate money to cover the rental and get no other income from the stadium. It's not financially viable.
The fact they are staying for at least 1 (and I suspect 2) seasons means we should get the money for the pitch. Obviously if they were leaving this summer there would be no contribution !
The pitch protection for the half marathon would only have been down for a few hours so can't see how it can have done any damage, although obvioulsy for those who think the stadium should be left closed except for 90 minutes every fortnight it will be worth having a moan !

[Hound]

"It's very difficult for us to make ends meet renting a stadium off Reading FC," Casey told BBC Radio Berkshire.

"We have to look at it from a commercial side of things," the former Exiles second row added. "Where rugby is going at the moment, for us to be able to compete, we have to generate much more revenue.

"The best way to do that is to get more bums on seats and having a better deal with the stadium we play at."

is a whinge

I'm certainly not against the Hm, in fact I'm a huge fan of it and run it every year, with the main attraction being the stadium finish. But when the boards are down for at least 24 hours, with 10k people running over them, it will inevitably damage the turf. Be very naive to think otherwise.

[Nameless]

You are interpreting it as a whinge, whereas it is a simple statement that Irish have made for a long time that it is impossible to run the club competitively under the current arrangement. There are lots of reasons for that and there has been no criticism of RFC over it. They are trying to find ways to address it, so they aren't 'whinging'. They need things from th or stadium that th y cannot have by being tenants just on matchdays. The 'better deal' point is not saying RFC are ripping them off.

The HM track would have been down for about 12 hours and it's obviously put down to protect the pitch, no feet pounding the grass, weight spread by the boards etc.

[Jakarta Bee]

Work has started on the new stadium - London Irish have permission to play there:

http://www.brentfordcommunitystadium.com/

[JamieY26]

How is that whinging ?
It's obvious that renting a stadium for a few hours is not going to make you any money, especially if you are daft enough to spend several seasons playing badly and driving your supporters away ! They need to be able to earn from beer / pie sales, non match day activities etc and at the moment I doubt they take enough gate money to cover the rental and get no other income from the stadium. It's not financially viable.
The fact they are staying for at least 1 (and I suspect 2) seasons means we should get the money for the pitch. Obviously if they were leaving this summer there would be no contribution !
The pitch protection for the half marathon would only have been down for a few hours so can't see how it can have done any damage, although obvioulsy for those who think the stadium should be left closed except for 90 minutes every fortnight it will be worth having a moan !

Its annoying more than anything else considering they are just going to go and rent Brentfords stadium instead....

[Nameless]

How is that whinging ?
It's obvious that renting a stadium for a few hours is not going to make you any money, especially if you are daft enough to spend several seasons playing badly and driving your supporters away ! They need to be able to earn from beer / pie sales, non match day activities etc and at the moment I doubt they take enough gate money to cover the rental and get no other income from the stadium. It's not financially viable.
The fact they are staying for at least 1 (and I suspect 2) seasons means we should get the money for the pitch. Obviously if they were leaving this summer there would be no contribution !
The pitch protection for the half marathon would only have been down for a few hours so can't see how it can have done any damage, although obvioulsy for those who think the stadium should be left closed except for 90 minutes every fortnight it will be worth having a moan !

Its annoying more than anything else considering they are just going to go and rent Brentfords stadium instead....

No they aren't. They are hoping to have more of a partnership so they get all matchday revenue and revenue from non sporting events as well. No idea of they have got that agreed yet but they were never going to be more than tenants with us whereas they will be more like co owners at Brentford.

[Hound]

The HM track would have been down for about 12 hours and it's obviously put down to protect the pitch, no feet pounding the grass, weight spread by the boards etc.

not going to reply on the Irish thing, as like you say I do interpret it as a whinge, and you don't - fair enough.

But the HM thing - and this was absolutely not a criticism of it being in the stadium - the boards would surely have been down for a lot longer than that - they wouldn't have been laid on the morning of the run. And having 10k people trample over these boards is going to batter the ground underneath them.

As I say, it wasn't on the pitch itself but right up to the touchline - my initial query was whether there had been similar events which have caused the damage to the grass off the actual playing area. Its a major confusion to me as to why its in such a state

[Nameless]

The boards went down overnight, Irish were playing there the day before ! They protect the surface, 10,000 runners pounding direct on the grass would destroy it, spread the load using boards and you will greatly reduce any damage.

There haven't been any similar events for a while (Olympic flame event in 2012, various pop events some time ago)

I thought the reasons why the pitch is poor have been pretty well discussed. It's not one thing, it's a combination. Different people apportion more or less of the blame to having rugby there. It's a factor but not (IMHO) the single or even major cause. Looks like 2 more seasons and we'll see if no rugby means we have a pitch suitable for billiards !

[Hound]

Let's hope so

I'm sure the boards prevented a large amount of the damage that the runners would have caused running on the grass (would have been very messy otherwise), and obviously when you are hosting some of the best runners in Britain you need a good solid surface for them to run on

I didn't think it really got resolved why the area of grass off the actual playing area was so battered did it? Maybe I just missed that one

[AthleticoSpizz]

think Paultheroyal is your man for that one.

[Nameless]

That corner of the ground is actually quite special.
It got a bit over looked when they opened the Eamon Dolan Stand but that same weekend the club renamed that corner the Gordon Neate Corner and emptied a 50 gallon drum of weedkiller on it as a tribute to the great man.

[AthleticoSpizz]

Lol......and as Paultheroyal might say...."stop embarrassing yourself"