Following the latest postponements of games due to waterlogging, including those against 1874 Northwich, recent Sunday league fixtures and tonight's fixture against Workington we wanted to provide a bit more information. Unfortunately twitter can only allow for so many characters!

In the summer 2020 we entered into a pilot study with the Football Foundation. This sought to test the possible utilisation of hybrid surfaces within community settings as an alternative to wholly artifical surfaces.

The new pitch was installed with a horizon hybrid carpet system in place, which effectively sees synthetic fibres (5%) within the structure of the pitch, but is otherwise a natural (95%) playing surface. The goal was simple - to see how much usage could be put on the pitch without impeding playability.

We applied to receive funding in order to participate in the pilot and were successful, this was in part due to the demand for facilities in the local are relative to supply. The conditions of this funding included the need to provide at least 25 hours of community use per week on the pitch.

Due to covid this is our first season being able to fully utilise the pitch for it's purpose.

All in all the pilot has been very successful. A diverse set of teams utilise the pitch including the senior mens side, Bootle Reserves, Bootle Under 21s, Bootle Under 18s, Bootle Vets, FC Bootle, Sefton Vets, Mottram, Custy's and Bootle Bucks Inclusion. Most recently we have been able to provide a facility for Litherland Remyca following the storm damage to their ground. The site also hosts youth training throughout the week and has hosted a number of charity games all within it's first full season.

This has amounted to the equivalent of over 160 football matches since the start of the playing season to date.

As part of the pilot we continually test the pitch to see it's performance. The usage on the pitch has lead to some compaction of the playing surface and a build up of organic matter at the surface.

The most recent wet weather prevented us from completing work we would have liked. There was surface water which we hadn't been able to remove and with the forecast we were not confident that we'd be able to take the steps to ensure the match would take place and avoid a wasted journey for our opponents.

Like all teams we will be completing a full renovation of the pitch in May in order to remove this organic matter, we are also consulting on ways to avoid the same build up of organic matter in future.

Whilst it is frustrating the lessons learned will be valuable to us and potentially many others.

#UpTheBucks