3G pitch for next season?

[comrade powell]

https://www.bathcityfc.com/club-update-on-3g-and-redevelopment/

My only question is why it has taken so long for the Club to return to this idea but I'm sure this will be explained to members at Thursday's Society meeting.

[BenE]

I would be interested to see how the 8ft slope towards mo b q corner is taken out. 3G pitches are generally fairly flat so the ground at mo b q would be about 8ft higher. It is already really steep up from the car park at this end.
The redevelopment would have addressed this with the new stand and revised terracing.
Secondly any new redevelopment proposals would surely not include revising the terracing if we are reassured that it would not affect the new pitch. How would they build it without damaging the pitch?

[SteveS]

Agree it will be interesting to see how the problem of the slope is addressed. Regarding the proposed redevelopment if anything does happen I think it will be very minor compared to the scheme that Greenacre were proposing and if people are expecting the football club to gain lots of new facilities then I think they will be disappointed.

[Steve Whites Missus]

Does a 3G pitch actually need to be level?

[Peter Newman]

Might be an optical  impact but the Hemel pitch seemed to have the same slope as the former grass one.

[comrade powell]

It does - I’m guessing that Hemel’s has been mentioned to show that having a slope does not mean an artificial pitch is out of the question. I’d say their pitch has a similar slope to Chippenham’s which is also being converted.

[Luton Roman]

It does - I’m guessing that Hemel’s has been mentioned to show that having a slope does not mean an artificial pitch is out of the question. I’d say their pitch has a similar slope to Chippenham’s which is also being converted.

Also the quality of the Hemel pitch seems a step up from others we have seen in our league and Cup visits.

[comrade powell]

Agreed. For me the yardstick as a spectator is how soon you forget the game isn't being played on grass. With Maidstone's it's around five minutes and not much longer for Hemel's. Whereas Oxford's is so poor it's a major distraction. Someone on social media suggested it suffers from poor quality - I wonder if it's more to do with overuse.
This winter has highlighted how vulnerable non league grass pitches are to frost and waterlogging and for that reason alone it makes sense.

However, the announcement included...
The Bath City family has a men’s team, a women’s team, an Academy, a thriving youth football club and our charity, The Bath City FC Foundation, which runs numerous community programmes, all of whom would use the pitch. In addition, the pitch would be available for hire by other sports clubs, schools, business and individuals, providing another 3G pitch for the city, where access to such pitches is oversubscribed.

To avoid the problem of overuse and the need for regular maintenance, I do wonder if this will prove to be much of an income stream for the club.

[OliverH]

https://www.bathcityfc.com/club-update-on-3g-and-redevelopment/

My only question is why it has taken so long for the Club to return to this idea but I'm sure this will be explained to members at Thursday's Society meeting.  

I imagine that the plans for a 3G pitch were always wrapped up in the redevelopment, but with that having been stalled, they now see potential in pushing ahead with it as a standalone project - as you say more will be explained to members tomorrow at the Society IGM.

Like others on this thread I do worry about the impact on TP as a whole from levelling the pitch. I remember when we consulted on this as part of the original Greenacre proposal, the plan was to effectively "raise" the pitch, i.e. keep the rubble and redistribute it, which would have seen the Bath End and a big chunk of the Pop side near the Bath End go "underwater" so to speak. I imagine these plans may have changed but let's see.

[BenE]

My information that 3G has to be laid nearly level comes from the original proposal. As Oliver suggests this was a good excuse for hiding hundreds of tons of rubble plus it justified the new stand being higher to screen the student flats.
So a sloping pitch may not be a problem after all.
A 3G pitch needs replacing every few years so there is a huge ongoing cost on top of the initial cost. Therefore it needs to be well used.

[Peter Newman]

Not an expert but assume that the level of use is a factor in pitch depreciation so lower usage would mean a longer period before replacement required.

[kermit]

Well of course it's a difficult thing to predict. The cost of installation can be estimated fairly accurately, but once installed it all becomes more difficult.
The more it it used the sooner it will need to be replaced at considerable cost.
We would save money on renting off site training facilitates, but that brings in no revenue.
How much money we could generate from non-BCFC activities is presumably a big guess.
How many more staff would we need to employ during the hours that we are accepting bookings. That is a fixed cost that we incur even if the facility is not being rented out.
We could factor in 'savings' from having less postponed fixtures.
Maybe there is a ground maintenance saving, maybe not.
All in all, a huge number of factors to consider.
Good luck to those responsible for making that decision.
I see Chip'n'pin have decided against going plastic.

[comrade powell]

We would save money on renting off site training facilitates, but that brings in no revenue.

The renting of training facilities at SGS College has been entirely funded by the Supporters Club for the past few seasons.

[kermit]

Yes, so that money could be put into a different project.

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