MILLWALL could have to postpone plans for a complete reconstruction of the pitch at The Den – but if football returns in the spring or summer it will have benefitted from a well-deserved rest.
The six-figure job got the sign-off from the Lions board in May last year and work was being planned to commence this summer.
But the coronavirus crisis has thrown football as it has every area of society into chaos and given it’s a 14-week project it is unlikely to go ahead. Millwall will also be hit financially by the effects of the pandemic so may have to put non-essential plans on the back burner.
The Den still has the same under-pitch architecture it was fitted with when it was completed in 1993.
Drainage has been an issue, and the stadium’s head groundsman, Steven Chalk, revealed that there have been occasions when games have been in threat of postponement.
Chalk used cameras to detect where some of the clay drainage system had collapsed in order to put together a report and presentation for the Millwall board.
Lions executives examined Chalk’s assessment and agreed a full reconstruction of the pitch was needed.
Chalk and his assistant, Charlie Burrage, and the five grounds staff that maintain the training pitches, are the only non-essential staff who are going to work at The Den and to Calmont Road.
Chalk will have a new modern pitch to manage at some stage, but it looks like that won’t be until at least the summer of 2021.
“The actual undersoil heating, the irrigation, the drainage, is the same construction as what was put in in May 1993,” Chalk told NewsAtDen this week. “Yes, we take off the top 25 mil [millimetres] every year like most clubs do.
“I put together a presentation in November 2018. I’d got drainage experts in, people from different areas to do loads of testing so I could put something together and present it to the board to say: ‘These are the problems we have, if we don’t do something soon we’re going to start getting games called off, potentially.’
“This season’s been horrendous weather-wise, how we got through some games I don’t know. The board are fully aware of what’s going on, and so is the manager [Gary Rowett]. When he came in he was briefed that it was a very, very old surface and come winter it struggles, there’s no denying that.
“We do everything we can to try to get that water off the surface. We use all different kinds of aeration machines on a monthly basis. We’re not just sitting back doing nothing, that’s not the case at all.
“We were meant to get a new pitch this summer: new drains, new irrigation, new undersoil heating – the full works. The way things are looking right now with what’s happening in the world, that’s looking very slim. It’s a 14-week project, digging up half a metre and going from the very beginning again, like most clubs have done. It’s the norm for a pitch of 27 years.
“It’s looking like we’re going to have to postpone that for another year because we just don’t know when we’re going to start the season again.
“But we have got the backing for a new pitch. It’s not like the board are saying you can’t have this or that, it’s not like that at all. They know the concerns, they know this is where you get the three points, and it has to be in tip-top condition because you can’t afford to lose games.”
The pitch has been showing signs of the effects of the weather and usage in recent months. Bristol City boss Lee Johnson spoke about the “boggy” surface after the 1-1 draw in February.
Chalk – who will be 10 years with the club next October – also knows fans can be critical on social media.
But he explained there are multiple factors that affect the quality of the playing area.
He continued: “From the beginning of December to the end of January we had nine games in seven weeks. That’s with under-23s, the FA Youth Cup and the FA Cup.
“People just do need to realise this is a very, very old surface and the actual foundations have not been touched. We had cameras down there and there are clay drains, that’s unheard of these days. It’s all MDPE pipework now.
“The board are fully aware of what lays underneath. They’ve backed us, they’re not criticising us. I can’t emphasise how good they have been.
“We don’t have to explain it to 18,000 people, like anything people just hone in on the negatives.
“Even the players know, the manager’s briefed them. Our hardest point was, they’re going to the likes of Aston Villa, Fulham, Cardiff. They’re on all these million-pound pitches that are part hybrid; five per cent is fake, basically.
“I think 19 teams in the Championship have those pitches. They’ve upgraded irrigation, undersoil heating and drainage. We are one of four or five that haven’t. In the Premier League they’ve all got a state-of-the-art pitches.
“Going forward, if we do get into the Premier League, we’d have to have one of them.
“We’re on social media, and it’s a great tool, but we’ve come across people moaning and groaning. Some people don’t know the true facts. Don’t get me wrong, everyone is entitled to an opinion, we all have one, but when people just start randomly shouting, ‘it’s bad,’ or it’s this or that, if they want to know information we’re happy to tell them.
“We don’t want to see [the pitch adversely affecting games] because we know when that happens and the game finishes we’re the first in the firing line. It’s like, ‘what’s happened here?’”
So, if and when the league resumes, can we expect a beautiful lush green surface?
Chalk insisted: “We’re working on it! It’s come at quite a good time for the pitch. It’s getting a well-deserved break. At the moment it’s recovering well, there have been no games for a good couple of weeks now.
“When we get that phone call to say the game’s on we want to be ahead and know with these remaining five home games, if they’re Saturday-Tuesday, if they’re crammed in, that we’ll be able to take that.
“We’re keeping it ticking over, basically not letting it get out of hand. We’re keeping to a reasonably decent level so when we get the call that things are going ahead it’s in decent nick.
“We don’t want to just let it go off for two weeks, let it get out of hand and then the games are back on in so many weeks and the pitch is in not great condition.
“For us we’re coming in maintaining it the way we would do if we had games.”
Images: Steven Chalk