Much ado about 3G

BY OLIVER ASH

There's on-field and off-field at a football club. We have all been very occupied with off-field matters over the past few months. Fortunately Jay and the players have had an excellent start to the season on the field. 

As I write this we are in a strong position close to the top, with a couple of games in hand and able to put in first-class performances on our day. We would have signed up for that at the start of the season. In fact those of us who thought play-offs were a reasonable target sometimes forget that that implies there will be a few defeats as well as the run of victories in style. We can't always play attractive, entertaining, winning football. Even Barcelona have off-days.

We now need to consolidate and make sure we don't have too many of these off-days. If injuries are not too unkind to us we will be there or thereabouts at the end of the season. We don't have FA Cup, Trophy and Youth Cups to distract us anymore. While this might be a good thing in the longer term as we can concentrate on the league; I am disappointed we didn't get further in these competitions. The FA competitions are the glamour end of non-league (and of course there's the prize money) and who wouldn't trade a league win or two for the chance to do what Brackley FC have just done by knocking out Gillingham in the first round...? I have a sneaky feeling next season is going to be ours for a majestic cup run. Just remember you read it here first...

Off the field we have been concentrating on making sure match-days are safe, entertaining, friendly and with a good variety of food and drink outlets. We hope we are getting this pretty much right most of the time. No doubt you will continue to tell us if we don't! We're also planning to increase the range of merchandise you will be able to purchase and we are improving the on-line shop to make it easier and quicker to order on-line.

I am surprised that I have managed to get to the fifth paragraph of this blog without mentioning 3G. Do not fear, it is still my number one obsession. Over the past 12 months more and more people in football are coming round to the idea that 3G is not the devil but has a huge and positive role to play in football at every level. In the top divisions in Wales and Ireland it is allowed. In Scotland there are 11 clubs playing on 3G in the Scottish League. There are two 3G clubs in The Scottish Championship - Falkirk and Hamilton. Hamilton are currently runaway leaders of The Championship and are a case in point: several years ago they were promoted to SPFL and chose to rip up their 3G pitch. Their community and academy programmes suffered considerably in the following years and it took relegation and a decision to put 3G back in to their stadium to rebuild the fortunes of the club. It is hard to imagine they will choose to rip 3G up this time if they achieve promotion and much more realistic to imagine The SPFL taking the sensible decision to allow 3G in their league.

Closer to home let me update you on latest 3G news:

• Our open letter in September to Greg Dyke at The FA received nearly 20,000 hits on the Maidstone United website and we received countless messages of support for our proposals from clubs and individuals around the country. In his reply Greg even admitted agreeing with us on 3G. In fact we still haven't heard one single, sensible, objective argument against 3G being allowed at all levels of the English game since we set up 3G4US (now 50 clubs strong) two years ago.
• All this makes it all the more surprising that The FA has not subsequently addressed the issues we raised with any serious attention. In Greg Dyke's reply to us he said he had put a senior executive on the case. However the executive in question confessed to me when I spoke to him that he was not qualified to address the 'political' points raised in our letter. We wrote back to Greg Dyke to take issue with this anomaly. We have had no reply. I can only leave you to imagine how we feel this matter has been handled...
• We have written to The Football Conference to request that they reconsider their refusal to allow 3G in their competition. We have added some new arguments resulting from consultations we have had with barristers, who specialise in sport and competition law. We are raising all these issues again with The Conference in a few days time. We remain confident that common sense will prevail and that The Conference will find a way of opening their doors to 3G. 

The other issue we raised with The FA was academies. There is still precious little sensible support for clubs like ours running academies to be protected when the big clubs come sniffing around. The system is really designed to protect and enrich the bigger clubs at the expense of the smaller ones. As a direct result we find our top young academy players are being scouted down and hassled by agents on a regular basis, which is disruptive for them and for us, although we acknowledge it can ultimately be in the player's interest.  Well when we have resolved the 3G problems, we will turn our attentions to urging The FA to organise a general debate on this issue. 

Well all that remains here is for me to hope that we come out of the next couple of weeks of very tough matches with a few points and some high octane performances to warm us all up in the chill.

Take good care.

My 3G tantrum

Oliver Ash

It was a day of frustration for all at Maidstone United when our FA Trophy Second Round match against FC Halifax Town was called off on Saturday due to an unplayable pitch.

Several other fixtures were also called off around the country but Maidstone United’s magnificent new 3G artificial grass pitch was playable and hosted a match between the Stones and Folkestone’s deaf teams. 

Last Tuesday, in freezing evening conditions, 1120 spectators watched Maidstone’s home game in the Ryman League, while all but one other league game was called off due to frozen pitches. At the end of the game the referee praised the pitch, saying it had felt like a good quality grass pitch throughout the game despite the chill. 

A few weeks prior, when the rains came down and several more games were called off with waterlogged pitches (with others taking place on mud baths) Maidstone’s home game was played on a perfectly drained pitch in front of an enthusiastic crowd of 1400. 

We became the first club in England to purpose-build a 3G pitch stadium. Recent weeks have vindicated our decision. Our opponents and ourselves have enjoyed a perfect playing surface in heavy rain and freezing temperatures alike. 

It is frustrating that 3G is not yet authorised at Conference and above. As a result, clubs below that level are reluctant to put in 3G, when they otherwise might. Therefore, football often has to be played on knackered grass and mud pitches at non-league or junior football league level.

Let’s face it, a number of non-league grass pitches are poor quality, particularly at this time of the year. They are virtually unplayable for a quarter of the season due to bad weather, causing fixture backlogs, supporters’ frustration and revenue losses. They aren’t conducive to playing good football either because they are in a dreadful condition, therefore long-ball football is often the main tactic. 

Meanwhile, there is research evidence now available after 10 years play on the new 3G surfaces, to show they perform as well as decent grass pitches in terms of ball bounce and roll and likelihood of sustaining injuries. The only real difference therefore is that 3G plays like a top quality pitch in most weathers while grass and mud is often unplayable in extreme weather conditions.

I am not saying all clubs have to follow our example and put in 3G. It should be a simple choice where the club has the resources and believes the business plan on 3G would work. For the time being the FA, the Conference and the Football League are all refusing to open the door fully to 3G. All we want is for clubs to have complete freedom to be able to choose to put in perfect playing surfaces which are weather proof. The more such pitches the better for players and spectators alike. Sounds like a no-brainer doesn't it?

Most 3G pitch business plans would indeed work due to the potential pitch hire income, as long as capital or credit can be raised for installation. The costs are around £250-300k depending on soil conditions and pitch specification. Also the regular gate income from weekend matches uninterrupted by postponements is vital and can be life-saving for cash-strapped lower league clubs.

Figure this out – the world football governing body Fifa allows international matches on 3G; several leading UK clubs and national bodies, like Arsenal and the FA itself at Wembley, are already allowed to use plastic grass strands to knit their grass pitches together better. Some 3G is good, some 3G is bad... it doesn't make sense.

And after this weekend, as the players, officials and supporters of FC Halifax Town and Maidstone United sat twiddling their thumbs I wonder if it's not time to change tack. Perhaps it's actually the poor quality grass and mud pitches which shouldn't be allowed by the football authorities, and not 3G pitches?!

One for the future

Terry Casey

During our weekly meeting with Andy Ford, Bill and I congratulated the new management team for producing a performance at Carshalton which was, by all accounts, as good a display by a Maidstone team for some time.

We then looked ahead to the match at Harlow and Andy informed us that it would be difficult to find eleven players to start the game. Such is the unfairness of football that we took a great stride forward at Carshalton only to be struggling to find a team for, probably, the most important match of our season.

We are however a small business and we are already losing a great deal of money each week so we are not prepared to make panic moves into the market. Andy and Steve are building a competitive squad within the budget and we are determined to put the business onto a sound footing. My personal concern was that we would not be good enough to stay in this league but I am convinced that we have enough talent and determination beat the drop.

I had the pleasure of watching Maidstone United under 14s two weeks ago. I must say that not only do they have a number of highly talented players they also, as a team demonstrated levels of discipline that would make any Maidstone supporter proud that they were wearing a Maidstone shirt.

I spoke to them in the dressing room and they were polite and well-mannered and a great credit to their parents and to Alan Swift and Marc Gasson who run the side. They won the game as they have won all but two of their games all season. They did it without any dissent or petulance but by skill, determination and teamwork. With continued good leadership and careful handling these kids will become the future of Maidstone United.

Bill and I went to Dover Athletic FC this week and met with Jim Parmenter, their chairman. He showed us around the stadium and gave us valuable ideas as to how a football club can make extra revenue from activities off the pitch. What was interesting was the fabulous condition of the grass on the pitch. It was explained that the grass surface was in such excellent condition because they hardly ever trained on the pitch and did not have a reserve team, therefore only using the surface once every two weeks. We then asked what other ways improve revenue streams and he told us “beating Gillingham in the FA Cup helps!”

Clubbing together

Oliver Ash

I didn’t see the Wealdstone game on Saturday (the Ryman is not screened live in France yet unfortunately...) but I hear from Bill the performance was encouraging.

Obviously that is good news. One point is welcome but on the other hand we need a few three-pointers quickly otherwise we’ll be marooned at the wrong end of the table. So please keep backing our boys and they’ll come good very soon, I’m sure.

We’re working as quickly as possible to reorganise the club, deal with the pressing financial issues and agree the new ground plan. It is vital we design the right project before we launch the specific new fundraising and commercial activities because that is the key attraction. We know that we will have to plan a fairly basic design at first simply because of the cost. As and when the club starts to earn revenue we can hopefully extend and improve accordingly.

We have already stated we aim for a budget of £1 million and even this is tight if we want to include all the essentials, clubhouse, stand, car parking, floodlighting and of course artificial pitch. Our preference is for this pitch for all the obvious reasons – it generates revenues, it brings all the club’s teams together on one site, it enables first team games to go ahead in bad weather and it encourages good football.

However we will have to investigate fully the implications for playing at other levels now and taking a view on future prospects before we take a final decision. We don’t know this yet so please be patient.

Next up is Croydon Athletic away on Wednesday, followed by the FA Trophy against Cray Wanderers on Saturday. Here's to wins in both of those games.