Sunday 12 April 2015

CLOUGHIE FELL ASLEEP ON THE JOB

Quoted today was the fact that QPR have one of the smaller pitches in the Premier League and it is made even smaller by the surrounding vertical stands that make Loftus Road a bit of a cauldron. Pitches at the adult level may be between 100 and 130 yards long and 50-100 yards wide but not square.
So the smallest pitch in the Premier League is West Ham's at 110 x70 yards, Spurs 110 x 73, Everton 110 x 74, Palace 110 x 75, Liverpool 110 x 75, all in “old stadia”.
Leicester at the King Power weighs in at 110 x 76 and then comes QPR.
The biggest is the Etihad 116.5 x 78 and Old Trafford 116 x 76. Hull is equal widest at 78 the rest are around 114-5 x 72-76. The newer stadia tend to be 115 long and about 75 wide.

What a difference a yard makes? Some managers have been known to narrow pitches to congest matches against ball playing opposition and some even go to the extent of putting advertising hoardings close to the touchlines so long throw experts don't get a run up. 
Brian Clough famously over watered the Baseball Ground before a European Cup tie with Benfica, including their star Eusebio, in the attempt to negate the skills of his foreign opposition. He fell asleep in the dead of night after he turned on the hosepipes and flooded the pitch almost postponing the game. The pitch was waterlogged the following morning and very muddy (it never had grass!), explained by " a local thunder storm"; there are a lot of those in Derby. he got away with it and won the two legged tie.

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