The Poolie Bunker

"Some very welcome news, as the project for the replacement of the current pitch commences.

It has been a project three years in the making and has been dependent on the support of various agencies.

First of all we are extremely grateful and thankful to The Football Foundation who have approved a project grant of £400,000 to FC Halifax Town Ltd and Calderdale Council as the Stadium owners. This will cover the installation of an all new ‘hybrid’ pitch with accompanying sub-structure including new drainage, new layers and a ‘Hero’ carpet which equates to a 95% grass and 5% synthetic pitch structure. This provides for a more robust pitch than a standard installation, increased capacity for games to be played and has the approval of the EFL for entry into their League, should FC Halifax Town achieve promotion.

On top of the £400,000, the remaining cost of the project will be shared by Calderdale Council, Halifax Panthers and FC Halifax Town. To all these partners a sincere thank you.

Special mention needs to be made in respect of Dr Richard Earl of TGMS and PSD Agronomy who has provided a professional study and recommendations, along with creating a specification, garnering quotations from various contractors and overseeing the execution of the project. His approach to the project has been of the highest professional standard and he has played a very important role in bringing the project to a point of installation and ultimately completion.

Finally, having presided over a thorough and rigorous quotation process, we are delighted to confirm a West Yorkshire based local company Chappelow Sports Turf Ltd has been awarded the contract who will be seeking to start immediately.

The plan is for the major groundworks works and re-fill to be completed by the latest 30th June allowing then time for the seed to establish and produce a thick grass sward to facilitate fixtures being played in the early part of the football season."

Halifax also have a rugby league team playing on their pitch and with all the rain they get up on the Pennines that's a recipe for loads of postponed games. Nice of the Football Foundation to stump up most of the money for a problem of Halifax's own making.
Could be the way to go for Pools too though? Increased community use of that type of pitch should get Hartlepool Council on board.

When we ground shared with West, the pitch ended up like the Somme….no thanks.

We did get the executive boxes out of it- but the pitch was a 'great leveller' as they say in FA cup parlance!

My great dread is when some dreamy politician would like it to be a ‘Community’ Stadium and everything from scrambler bikes to folk dancing elephants are booked to use the venue and your precious place becomes a bit less yours.

when are they going to do this with the pitch used for football and rugby 12 months a year. Plus how will they stop the heavy rainfall the area always gets.