I have been thinking about this for a while. I remember a match either last year or the year before at new Wembley and some workers had to come out onto the field and poke holes in the ground with shovels to try to get the field to drain. And maybe because it's been such a rainy summer here in Chicago I feel like an expert on the topic of lawn drainage(i.e. grass field drainage). But the real expert is this man named Roger Bossard, Head Groundskeeper of the Chicago White Sox Baseball club. -- http://chicago.whitesox.mlb.com/cws/team/exe_bios/bossard_roger.html Roger Bossard "The Sod Father" as he is known locally, has a talent for re-designing ball fields so they drain properly. In the case of the White Sox he built the field on top of an aquifer by the use of not just a few drain tiles here or there but rather a massive network of drain tiles, sand and gravel. I think a system like this would work great in Wembley. Assuming they haven't solved the drainage problem themselves already perhaps someone from Wembley could contact Roger Bossard "The Sod Father" for his services.
The problem with Wembley was from overuse and the design of the stadium. The pitch, which was relaid several times over the years, couldn't sustain itself properly as the time frames between use were too short. The Wembley stadium design limits sunlight so light lamps are used, as they are at most British stadia, to artificially give the grass 'fake sun'. But there was still the problem of overuse so the lamps were not doing the needed week worth of penetrating the grass to let it grow properly. This combined with bad aeration due to overuse created bad drainage and made the pitch slippery on top and hard on the bottom. A snowball effect. This all has apparently improved over the summer as Wembley have installed Desso Grassmaster. They took time to embed the pitch with seeds and then injected millions of artificial fibres. This will improve the pitch over time as the natural grass further entwines with the artificial fibres. So far, players have endorsed it saying it's a huge improvement. M Owen for example. The problem was due to overuse so the grass couldn't grow well. The new system will help this to give the grass support. The actual modern drainage technology using something like a SubAir system, gravel/sand/sod, heating, etc., is standard.
my apologies to everyone for the thread bump...was not really sure where to place this item: FA to sell Wembley to Fulham and Jacksonville Jaguars owner Shahid Khan Read more at https://talksport.com/football/fa-s...-shahid-khan-180426280489#OurRIQZBxxFyuJEt.99
I missed it but a Parliamentary committee discussed the sale of the stadium today. Gary Neville disagrees with selling Wembley and wants the money to come from the Premier League or a tax on agents. Some Members of Parliament also want the money to come from the Premier League but Tracey Crouch disagreed and said that the PL had increased funding for grassroots from the last TV deal. FA boss Martin Glenn seemed to say that they were hoping the funding would come from other sources but that facilities have deteriorated to such a state that they need to act now and the cash from the stadium sale is the most realistic solution.