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Sorry to interject here but I thought it would interesting to let you know about the artificial pitch at Bayview. This is now our 3rd year (4th season) we have been playing on it & the vast majority of user say it is as good as it was when first laid. This is not by luck though, our pitch actually gets more maintenance than our much vaunted grass pitch, around 9-10 hours per week but even with that we would be looking to have the surface relaid in 6-8 years. Synthetic pitches will struggle to pass SFA testing after that time scale. Without that maintenance our game yesterday would have been in doubt as our grounds man did his usual Friday work (yes on New Year’s Day) and scattered the prefrost salt. That plus the fact that we had a junior game kick off at 10am meant that any frost was broken up ahead of our game. We are similar to Montrose in that it is a local charity who maintain & lease the pitch so that financial burden has been taken away from the club. The whole project though would not have been possible without a £350k grant from Fife Council & £50k from the SFP. We were also fortunate that our drainage system was ideal to use with synthetic pitches so a lot of money was saved there.

Meandering a bit now but getting a good synthetic pitch is major financial investment for any football club.

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On 02/01/2021 at 10:43, Dumbarton Rock said:

I don't think it would be that easy to just lay a plastic pitch due to our subsidence. The pitch is still moving towards the river and the dip used to flatten out round about the first goalpost, it now carries on about 20ft by the goals. It would cost a 5 figure sum to level it before you could even start on it. Add in the fact you wont stop it continuing there could be a major problem. I'm no expert but you don't notice it with grass and I'd imagine the astro would just rip, it's not just an inch or two we are talking about.

It wouldn't cost that much with a bit of ingenuity. A landowner, not a million miles from the Rock charged Barr (yes them)  1,000 per ton to dump rubble on his land from the Gartocharn Reservoir works. Just a pity they couldn't have dumped a few tons at the stadium and the same company might have been paid in full for building the stadium at the Rock! (instead of being docked for the subsidence)

 

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Moving away from the Astroturf chat for a minute, I spoke to Boomer the other week about his time at the Sons - and his decision to leave. If local travel restrictions prevented you from picking up a copy of the Lennox, then it's now online.

Clicky

I think I said it before, but I really do hope he gets himself back on track at EK. It's an absolute waste seeing him kicking about with the likes of them and Brechin. We didn't have many players in that relegation squad who A) Were that good and B) United the fans in thinking they were decent, but he was one of them. I do wonder what his career would've looked like if he'd stuck with us in the summer of 2018. We might also have not signed Willie Dyer...

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Even though it didn't work out for him, I think he'd have regretted not going to Australia. Those opportunities don't come around too often and you should grab them when you can. Hopefully he'll kick on with EK and get back to a decent level.

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On 03/01/2021 at 12:11, Bring Back Paddy Flannery said:

I’ve never assumed it is definitely possible but I’ve also never heard anything about us attempting to get one in the past (we may well have and it just hasn’t been made public knowledge). I’m simply suggesting that I’d like to see the club attempt to go down that route in the future. As OK mentioned earlier it would probably be fairly hard to come by in the current climate but I’d certainly like to see us sound out our options when everything calms down, whenever that may be. I think if an affordable solution can be found then the club would benefit from an artificial surface. 

Yep, it would definitely be a benefit to the club, I'd be all for it. I had just assumed any help from the council would be a non-starter given everything I've heard on here about them!

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14 hours ago, fifer67 said:

Must be odds  on your goalkeeper will be heading back to Hibernian. Saying they have a goalkeeping crisis with 2 now out injured . 

According to Jim Duffy he’s staying. As good as big Kev is I’m not sure he’s ready to be Hibs number 1. They don’t have a game until the 11th so hopefully they can get something sorted before then and big Kev can continue to do his best to lead us to 0-0 draws. 

Edited by Bring Back Paddy Flannery
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13 hours ago, The Moonster said:

Frizzell's deal is up a week today. It would just top this hellish season if Dabrowski went back to Hibs and Frizzell left this month.

Very difficult to replace those two. Could spell an absolute dreadful limp to the finish.

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34 minutes ago, the snudge said:

Very difficult to replace those two. Could spell an absolute dreadful limp to the finish.

The Dude would be a big loss. Frizzell? Has he really done much this time? Being honest, did he really do much when we had him first time round or was there a lot of good will and hope afforded to him because of the exploits of Dom Thomas?

I don't think Frizzell on current form would be a huge loss. 

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1 minute ago, BallochSonsFan said:

The Dude would be a big loss. Frizzell? Has he really done much this time? Being honest, did he really do much when we had him first time round or was there a lot of good will and hope afforded to him because of the exploits of Dom Thomas?

I don't think Frizzell on current form would be a huge loss. 

I suppose the thing on Frizzell would be, if we lose him, do you have confidence that we'd replace him with someone better?

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43 minutes ago, Jan Vojáček said:

I suppose the thing on Frizzell would be, if we lose him, do you have confidence that we'd replace him with someone better?

Given his lack of decisive contribution so far, I wouldn't be worried at losing him. If he was to play to his potential then he could be a huge asset for us, but that means stepping up significantly. Also means the manager changing things to actually play to our few strengths.

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52 minutes ago, BallochSonsFan said:

Given his lack of decisive contribution so far, I wouldn't be worried at losing him. If he was to play to his potential then he could be a huge asset for us, but that means stepping up significantly. Also means the manager changing things to actually play to our few strengths.

I’ll be honest, any time we decide to get the ball down and play a bit of football I think Frizzell tends to be a standout. The problem is we don’t do that very often, despite looking much better when we do. 

I can guarantee you that if Frizzell leaves he will be replaced by an absolute turd from some WOSL league team who have decided to patch it this season. 

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1 hour ago, BallochSonsFan said:

The Dude would be a big loss. Frizzell? Has he really done much this time? Being honest, did he really do much when we had him first time round or was there a lot of good will and hope afforded to him because of the exploits of Dom Thomas?

I don't think Frizzell on current form would be a huge loss. 

 

1 hour ago, Jan Vojáček said:

I suppose the thing on Frizzell would be, if we lose him, do you have confidence that we'd replace him with someone better?

Pretty much what I was trying to get at. I'd rather have him than perhaps an East Fife or Clyde getting him.

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I’ve also just remembered that Hamilton’s loan is only until January and I’m pretty sure Church only signed a short term deal.

I’d rather keep Hamilton, despite his indifferent performances, as once again I don’t think we could replace him with better. I’d probably rather Church left with our best wishes and we signed a proper winger instead. 

Either way, Duffy needs to sort it out asap. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again - if he does his usual and bumbles through January without dealing with things until the last week then we’ll be in trouble. 

I also wouldn’t be against a few bodies leaving to be replaced with more effective players. Forbes (highly unlikely), Denny, Jones & Morrison would be my candidates.

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4 minutes ago, cedrick1 said:

Jan has in paper that trying to get frizzell and hamilton. Seems we are more intent in keeping existing squad .

Presume follow on would be to see if we get anyone there after 

Thank God someone still buys the paper!

Today we've been called "SNP brainwashing" and a "Tory rag" - so basically whatever politics you're into we've got something for you. 

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