Why is Wembley pitch crap?

[NorthBank74]

Apologies if this was brought up before but I didn't see a previous post on this or a better forum so here goes...

After watching the 2nd half of England's loss to Croatia, I couldn't believe how bad the pitch was!

It looked like pitches I recall from the 70's... a bumpy, torn-up, waterlogged, mud patch. And why couldn't they get the gridiron hash marks removed after 3+ weeks since the Giants-Dolphins game?!

Every time I've seen the new Wembley starting w/ Brazil match, the pitch has looked crap.

What's the problem? Drainage? Ventilation? Laid wrong time of year? Groundskeeper?

BTW, I'm sooooo glad Arsenal decided to build it's own stadium rather than renting Wembley. :D

[Devil_78]

The pitch was bad. It got tore up pretty bad after the NFL game which was played out under some horrid weather. Of course, that was a while ago. Apparently, they tried to design in care for the pitch, but of course, it is one thing to design in care for the pitch when they where building the stadium, but grass is, of course, a living thing. Nature has an annoying habit of not sticking to what it has been designed to do. They are, apparently, planning to do some major repair work to the pitch, and to 'tweak' the surface to try to avoid this in the future.

What I am more interested in, is why did they not shut the roof? Apparently, they can cover the crowd, and protect people from the weather. So wy do we have that stupid image of a sullen McClaren, with a brolly.

[Pigs]

What's the problem? Drainage? Ventilation? Laid wrong time of year? Groundskeeper?


It's still a new pitch. Grass needs time to settle, and it doesn't help the fact that Wembley is a national stadium and hosts major none-football related events.

It's going to be a while yet until we see a decent pitch at Wembley.

[NorthBank74]

It's still a new pitch. Grass needs time to settle, and it doesn't help the fact that Wembley is a national stadium and hosts major none-football related events.

It's going to be a while yet until we see a decent pitch at Wembley.

But I keep thinking about the pitch at the new Arsenal Stadium. It was laid May'06 and Bergkamp's testimonial was 2 mos later. It was generally in great shape it's first season and has probably gotten even better this season. Granted it is a bit smaller and has corners which are designed for ventilation.

Climate doesn't seem the likely culprit. Arsenal & Wembley aren't really that far apart.

1 NFL game 3 weeks prior also doesn't seem the likely cause, even though the rain was supposedly awful then too.

Rugby... I assume they don't play that at Wembley, right?

Rock concerts could be a factor I suppose but I would think those would be limited to around May-Sept when the grass should be driest/strongest (although I guess this past summer was an aberration rain-wise). But the old Wembley had plenty of concerts and don't think the pitch was generally this poor.

I keep wondering if there is something fundamentally flawed either architecture, engineering or staff-wise.

Anyone else wondering the same?

[RichardL]

What I am more interested in, is why did they not shut the roof? Apparently, they can cover the crowd, and protect people from the weather. So wy do we have that stupid image of a sullen McClaren, with a brolly.
it's not a dome. The roof doesn't shut completely. Apparently a fully-closing roof would have been very expensive, so it's a good thing we avoided that.

There's been a problem with the pitch from the very start with it cutting up very badly. The NFL game took place during a deluge and probably ought to have been completely replaced afterwards. November typically isn't England's sunniest month, which doesn't help the grass to recover. Not only is the pitch a bit barren in places, but the nature of the turf itself makes it akin to playing on a rug on a polished floor.

[RichardL]

But I keep thinking about the pitch at the new Arsenal Stadium. It was laid May'06 and Bergkamp's testimonial was 2 mos later. It was generally in great shape it's first season and has probably gotten even better this season. Granted it is a bit smaller and has corners which are designed for ventilation.

Climate doesn't seem the likely culprit. Arsenal & Wembley aren't really that far apart.

1 NFL game 3 weeks prior also doesn't seem the likely cause, even though the rain was supposedly awful then too.

Rugby... I assume they don't play that at Wembley, right?

Rock concerts could be a factor I suppose but I would think those would be limited to around May-Sept when the grass should be driest/strongest (although I guess this past summer was an aberration rain-wise). But the old Wembley had plenty of concerts and don't think the pitch was generally this poor.

I keep wondering if there is something fundamentally flawed either architecture, engineering or staff-wise.

Anyone else wondering the same?

since opening wembley has hosted

9 concerts

a charity match
An England U21 match
4 play-off finals
the FA Trophy final
The FA Cup final
2 England friendlies
4 England qualifying games

Rugby League Final + schools match before the match.

NFL.

26 matches/events in total.

[sinner78]

You just answered your own question didnt you?
the NFL game ruined the pitch.

[NorthBank74]

since opening wembley has hosted

9 concerts

a charity match
An England U21 match
4 play-off finals
the FA Trophy final
The FA Cup final
2 England friendlies
4 England qualifying games

Rugby League Final + schools match before the match.

NFL.

26 matches/events in total.

Thanks Richard for that. I found Wembley's webpage which lists past events and decided to do a little analysis...

@Wembley June'06-Mar'07 (8 mos): pitch laid & nurtured (no official matches/events)

@Wembley Mar'07-Nov'07 (8 mos): 26 events (9 concerts, 14 footy, 2 rugby, 1 nfl)

So 8 mos "incubation" period was quite generous (Arsenal by my reckoning got only 2mos).

Then once it officially opened in March it was a bit busy but not excessive. If you assume concerts do similar damage compared to matches, that translates to 3.3 events/mo. Or if concerts do negligible damage compared to matches, that's 2.1 matches/mo.

I could only find this season's schedule for Arsenal, so let's compare this most recent period...

@Arsenal 12Aug-25Nov (3.5 mos): 12 first team footy matches (there might've been others played but I couldn't find them listed).

@Wembley 5Aug-21Nov (3.5 mos): 8 matches (6 footy, 1 rugby, 1 nfl)

So during this same 3.5 mo period, Arsenal hosted 3.4 matches/mo, whilst Wembley did 2.3 matches/mo.

It doesn't appear to me that they have over-scheduled Wembley. If anything they seem to have gone somewhat lightly.

The one thing I see that Wembley does that's more deterimental to it's pitch, is to host rugby & nfl. But still that's only 3 matches compared to the 14 footy played there. And the Wembley turf has been ripping up right from the opening U21 match in March I believe. So I don't think you can blame a few rugby/nfl games on that.

In the end, I'm still left thinking poor design, execution and/or oversight.

[RichardL]

The one thing I see that Wembley does that's more deterimental to it's pitch, is to host rugby & nfl. But still that's only 3 matches compared to the 14 footy played there. And the Wembley turf has been ripping up right from the opening U21 match in March I believe. So I don't think you can blame a few rugby/nfl games on that.

In the end, I'm still left thinking poor design, execution and/or oversight.
the rugby was rugby league, so shouldn't really have damaged the pitch.

Prior to the NFL game the pitch looked good, even if it did cut up.

The NFL scrimmages put a lot of wear into the pitch though. It was just unlucky to coincide with the only substantial rain in a spell of about 3 weeks, and the rain was very heavy. It was that that caused the turf to cut up so badly.

Reading share a ground with London Irish rugby club. Normally it's fine, but every now an then they have a game when it's really raining heavily, and the scrums from that ruin the pitch for a few weeks as well.

[NorthBank74]

Reading share a ground with London Irish rugby club. Normally it's fine, but every now an then they have a game when it's really raining heavily, and the scrums from that ruin the pitch for a few weeks as well.

Yes the rugby markings at Reading are visible, but I don't recall their pitch ever looking as bad as the new Wembley has on a few occassions in it's young life.

[Varg Vikernes]

Apologies if this was brought up before but I didn't see a previous post on this or a better forum so here goes...

After watching the 2nd half of England's loss to Croatia, I couldn't believe how bad the pitch was!

It looked like pitches I recall from the 70's... a bumpy, torn-up, waterlogged, mud patch. And why couldn't they get the gridiron hash marks removed after 3+ weeks since the Giants-Dolphins game?!

Every time I've seen the new Wembley starting w/ Brazil match, the pitch has looked crap.

What's the problem? Drainage? Ventilation? Laid wrong time of year? Groundskeeper?

BTW, I'm sooooo glad Arsenal decided to build it's own stadium rather than renting Wembley. :D


I think they were in such a rush to complete the new stadium they just slapped the turf down & hoped for the best. It also looks like poor quality turf as well as it seems after about 20 minutes into a match it looks like some average public park pitch. Call me old fashioned but I liked the old Wembley much better.

[Devil_78]

Your old fashioned!

Anyhoo. Old Wembley had many historic memories, and was world famous. However, the stadium was old, nackered and pretty crap. Actually watching a game there was a good/bad thing. Good because, hey, the game is important, and its Wembley. However, bad, because the facilities where wholly inadequate, the seat where way too small, and the visibility was poor.

[NorthBank74]

I read another BS post about turf and it mentioned "Desso GrassMaster". It's basically mostly grass but interwoven w/ synthetic (rubber?) grass fibers. Supposedly improves the durability, eveness & consistency of the pitch.

I remember when Arsenal laid it's new pitch in 2006 the groundskeeper talked about the interwoven Desso fibers but I had forgotten about that.

I wonder if the new Wembley uses this Desso system or something similar? If it doesn't maybe this is part of the reason it cuts up so badly?