Hard Lines

‘THE Express has tracked down the last remaining public football pitch in the British Isles and to its dismay found that the surface is unplayable.

Nothing that 400 tons of concrete wouldn’t sort out

Sure, there is the customary layer of grass in regulation green and a spirit level attests to the turf’s flatness. But it’s a tad too hard.

Cambridgeshire City Council, which proudly owns the jewel in Britain’s Football For The Future scheme, says that the hot sun has baked the earth, making it very hard indeed.

‘It’s not an over-reaction,’ says a spokesman for the council, ‘it’s a child safety issue’.

It’s also a fair point. Paedophiles, as the paper has often told us, are everywhere, not just in showbiz circles and the police force but disguised as goalposts and piles of jumpers.

But this has little to do with hard grass. Our man in the council offices goes on. ‘Our grounds and maintenance contract agency has found the grass to be unusually rock hard,’ he says.

‘We’ve asked the schools to consider it and it’s up to individual schools what they do with the advice.’

Our advice is that they do what everyone else has done – tarmac it over and turn it into a car park.’

Posted: 10th, September 2003 | In: Tabloids Comment | TrackBack | Permalink