Those of us who were at the midweek game against Celtic, should not need reminded of the deluge of rain which fell from heavens that night. Unfortunately, only a few of us knew of the drainage problems afflicting the club at that time, and nobody that I discussed the issue with, knew the severity of the problem.
Perhaps the first true indication came on 12 November when the club issued a statement explaining that a pitch inspection would be carried out early in the morning of the Hearts game. Mike Tumility duly arrived in time for a 0930 inspection and the pitch was declared playable.
The club responded immediately and on 16 November made the following, frank statement:
Saints have carried out a ‘shake up’ of the McDiarmid Park pitch – literally.
The Perth playing surface has taken a hammering over the past month with high levels of rain and four matches in under three weeks leading to a wet, churned up surface which have necessitated two pitch inspections ahead of games against Celtic and Hearts.
With winter still ahead of us, the club have called in agronomists to look at the situation as General Manager Grant Cullen has explained.
“We have called in a company who have worked with several SPL sides including Motherwell and they have given us a detailed report which we are acting on. We have had them bring in a specialist machine which essentially provides an ‘earthquake’ to the whole surface in a bid to improve drainage and this will hopefully help things in the short term.
“However, they have identified a deep-lying drainage problem well below the grass level and beneath the undersoil heating pipes. There is only so much we can do in mid-season but we are working hard to improve it as much as we can, the work carried out now is one of several measures we can take and hopefully we will get a break from the prolonged rain fall of recent weeks.”
The Perth playing surface has taken a hammering over the past month with high levels of rain and four matches in under three weeks leading to a wet, churned up surface which have necessitated two pitch inspections ahead of games against Celtic and Hearts.
With winter still ahead of us, the club have called in agronomists to look at the situation as General Manager Grant Cullen has explained.
“We have called in a company who have worked with several SPL sides including Motherwell and they have given us a detailed report which we are acting on. We have had them bring in a specialist machine which essentially provides an ‘earthquake’ to the whole surface in a bid to improve drainage and this will hopefully help things in the short term.
“However, they have identified a deep-lying drainage problem well below the grass level and beneath the undersoil heating pipes. There is only so much we can do in mid-season but we are working hard to improve it as much as we can, the work carried out now is one of several measures we can take and hopefully we will get a break from the prolonged rain fall of recent weeks.”
It’s a great shame that Saints fans have such short memories. For the avoidance of doubt, the snow fell at the end of November, and fell without much warning.
The snow we took delivery of in November and December was close to unprecedented, certainly, in the history of McDiarmid Park. In mid January, SEPA had 26 warnings issued for the Scotland’s rivers, 5 of them severe. The Crieff Road, just a mile from McDiarmid was closed for several hours, as Almondbank saw water levels rise to flood level.
Several resident loud-mouths in the St Johnstone support took great delight in taking photos of the flooding from their places of work to impress folks from outside Perth. Unfortunately, whenever a game is called off at McDiarmid, they forget their boasts that we had more snow and flooding than anywhere else.
It’s a good job that Saints invested several thousand of pounds in purchasing suitable rain covers for the pitch. Of course the fans want a dome style structure, but they blithely choose to ignore both the purchase cost and the ineffectiveness of the structure in a high wind.
Some, myself included, have questioned Chris’ contribution to the recent pitch damage; particularly as the covers blew off in the wind. Having spoken with the club, I have been made aware that the covers were both pegged down and had weights placed on top to try and stop them blowing away. Regrettably, even this contingency plan failed. Sometimes, there’s a lot to fighting nature’s elements and I for one owe Chris an apology for doubting his competence.
Being in the SPL generally means that a minimum of 4 matches per season will be moved for TV coverage. Thankfully, only one of our league games been on ESPN TV. This is an unexpected bonus for holders of season tickets. In addition, St Johnstone have only been responsible for one SPL call-off this season – the game against Aberdeen on 12 February 2011. The other three were called off as a result of advice from external groups, see below:
St Johnstone v Hamilton (SPL) - Reason for postponement – SPL Decision
St Johnstone v Dundee United (SPL) - Reason for postponement - Fans Safety
St Johnstone v Rangers (SPL) - Reason for postponement - Fans Safety
St Johnstone v Aberdeen (SPL) - Reason for postponement - Waterlogged Pitch
St Johnstone v Rangers (SPL) - Reason for postponement - Fans Safety
St Johnstone v Aberdeen (SPL) - Reason for postponement - Waterlogged Pitch
Nevertheless, it’s naive to expect any club to operate for an entire season without human error coming into effect; irrespective of whether it’s players, management or officials. What makes the situation even more bizarre is that the fans of the club are blaming all the wrong people. It seems that, in every circumstance, those with the least knowledge shout the longest.
Season ticket prices have increased by a surprisingly small amount since 2007 whilst the clubs wage bill has rocketed by a substantial margin during the same period. Some of us are well versed in the increases affecting areas such as power and fuel, not to mention the ever increasing maintenance budget of a stadium which is now entering a mid-life crisis. Nevertheless, the club have traded steadily throughout this period and on the footballing side, we have progressed from bottom half of the SFL1 to our current position which is the cusp of the top six in the SPL – on merit and despite some terribly bad luck.
Folk are keen to point the finger at blame at a lack of expenditure, I would suggest that we, as fans of the club, might want to look at our own actions. Who amongst us genuinely encourages our friends and family to attend games at McDiarmid? Who amongst us is prepared to be put out for the greater good of the club?
I can recall travelling to Glasgow city centre to collect three fans and take them to games in Perth, before driving them home and returning to Perth in the early hours of the morning. A so called “die-hard” told me he’d never do that for Saints! The same die-hard, threatening to surrender his season ticket, calls for greater investment in both players and stadium upgrades!
Last season we had 2400 season ticket holders, this season we have 2100. There was no price rise and it followed our highest ranking in over 8 years! Yes, McInnes cost us top six last season, yes the end of the season was a damp squid at the end, but we finished 8th best club in the land. Do folks not comprehend the enormity of finishing 8th in the highest category of our domestic football structure?
When the forumers speak of staff leaving at the club due to a lack of income (something which occurred last year) they would do well to look at their own financial contribution to the club. On many occasions, these idiotic fans arrogantly and falsely claim to pay the wages of the staff at McDiarmid, yet they forget this “fact” when they throw temper tantrums, refuse to attend games or stop buying season tickets.
What more can our club do? Folks want better PR, yet when invited to tell the club what they wanted improved, they simply couldn’t provide a coherent or united set of suggestions. Any ideas that were put forward, generally involved wasting money that we need to spend on players.
The wannabe journalists call for more information to be put on the club website, yet when the club do this, it’s either ignored completely or twisted to suit those that simply wish to deride our great club. At an impromptu “management meeting” for a local sports centre, I was given an interesting insight into the increase in the number of complaints received.
Coupled with my intimate knowledge of my current work place, it is clear that the credit crunch is having a strange effect on once normal people. We have become an expectant culture, demanding that things are structured to suit them and them alone. We have become a conceited and self-serving people, blinded by our own lusts and desires. It’s time for all of us to grow up and get on with it.
On a more personal note, it’s worth spending some time to dispel many of the myths which currently appear on the fans forum ‘WeArePerth’. I will deal with these in bullet point as many of the forumers should be shot with rubber bullets:
· Geoff is a business man. A highly successful business man. As such, he takes calculated risks to increase profit and reduce unnecessary outgoings. Our balance sheet, tells you that he’s doing a very good job at Saints.
· As part of the above all our directors want games to take place at times when crowds will be high, both in corporate and in the East Stand. Greater numbers equals greater revenue and generally greater profit.
· Televised league games do not increase our income, they generally reduce it. Local businesses do not gain from TV exposure so that has no effect on our income.
· Geoff has recently been accused of losing foresight. He was the one who 20 odd years ago said that undersoil heating appears to damage the playing surface of football pitches. He was regarded as out of touch when he made that comment.
· He has convinced many fans that the 10 team top tier is to the financial security of clubs like St Johnstone. We appear comfortable in the top ten in the SPL.
· We have been compared to Kilmarnock( a club with arguably the worst financial position in Scottish Football) and Motherwell (arguably the worst run SPL club in history) yet we have money in the bank and far superior players than either club.
· Grant Cullen has been blamed for this fiasco. Grant is responsible for many aspects of the club’s corporate activities, but he has little say in the footballing side of the business. His job title is wrong, and I warned the club of this in an email in 2010, when I suggested that it would take two people to replace Mr Duff. With hindsight, they may regret ignoring my warning but then again, what can a practical manager do to repair the pitch mid-season?
· The pitch inspection for the Aberdeen game could have been announced on Friday, as a precaution if nothing else. Thing is, by announcing such a decision, some folks would have elected to go skiing or some such and revenue would certainly have been lost.
· The pitch inspection for the Aberdeen game ideally should have been earlier than 1115 but the referee has to travel to the park and these things take time. How many of us are delighted to be woken early on a Saturday and asked to start work early?
Let me make a final and heartfelt plea. I’m on good terms with many folks at McDiarmid and would urge all true supporters to stop emailing the club. The recent staff changes mean that resources are very limited. Grant and Paul read the forum on a regular basis and are fully aware of the opinions expressed therein. Individual emails are extremely expensive to reply to and they do not solve anything. I can only imagine the content....
Too much hot air, against our club has been written, and I don’t for one instant imagine that my words will stop it. I do hope that some of you are ashamed when you read over your posts in the cold light of day. This has been a brilliant season, made possible thanks to having the cash in the bank which allows us to complete the season with a heavy loss. That’s thanks to Geoff and no thanks to the wishy washy fans that failed to renew their season tickets.
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