RUFC – Groundsman thankful Tuesday’s game was on

Rotherham United were the only League team to have their game postponed last weekend which was a big disappointment for the players, groundstaff and both Rotherham and the Aldershot fans who had made the journey up.

Referee, Michael Oliver, called the game off just before noon due to a waterlogged pitch and head Groundsman, Jim Davison, told The Advertiser what the problem was.

‘There’s a problem with frost under the shadow of the main stand at Don Valley,’ Jim explained. ‘We tried to combat that by covering the areas affected. There was no frost forecast for Friday so we uncovered the pitch with a view to getting straight to work on it the next morning. But, we had an inch and a half of rain on it overnight and when we got there the grass bank end of the pitch was like a lake. There was too much water for it to drain away.

‘To be honest, I was more worried about getting Tuesday nights match on against Darlington. Thankfully, we were able to get the pitch playable and afterwards we got some nice comments.

‘Contrary to what people might think, there is no undersoil heating at Don Valley and with the pitch never hosting football at this scale before it looks like there is a need to look at things like installing sand bands under the surface to improve drainage.’