Sunday 21 June 2015 10:52, UK
Sky Sports News HQ reporter Geraint Hughes brings us the latest news from England's Women's World Cup campaign in Canada...
In the past few days Norway’s players have been enjoying the response to their ‘mockumentary’ – a sideswipe at the stereotyped views of women’s football. When I mentioned to Norwegian keeper Ingrid Hjelmseth, one of the stars of the video, that we had been running it on SSN HQ she blushed and laughed out loud and said thank you!
She said they had a lot of fun making it and even more watching it. It had provided some light relief from the pressures of a World Cup. And while their satire makes them laugh, the state of the artificial pitches here in Canada is doing it’s best to darken their moods.
I’m not going to go over again the controversy about natural grass being replaced by artificial turf for Canada 2015, what I am going to write about is the players, and more and more of them, telling me about their concerns that the surfaces are just too dry and the problems that brings.
Watching Norway train on the outskirts of Ottawa I saw a problem first hand. Their training pitch hadn’t been watered, their allocated training slot was 11am and the sun was shining as it would do during a Canadian summer day where the temperature was in the high 20’s. A reserve striker was attempting a volley, her right foot got stuck in the turf, it twisted and down she went. Not a serious injury, but it hurt and she had an ice pack strapped around her ankle.
Hjelmseth who saw the incident told me: “they are just not watering the pitches. Actually I think the training pitches are better than the stadiums, but it is hot here and they don’t have sprinklers. The surface is too dry.”
Midfielder Solveig Gulbrandsen didn’t hold back her contempt: “It’s not good enough, it’s too dry. They water a bit and it goes away. The ball slows up, the pace of the game slows down. People are saying the womens game is too slow and we are trying to change that attitude, yet watching the games it is too slow. The ball doesn’t roll well and the bounce holds up. It is also tough on the joints, I am getting older anyway, but your feet get stuck and it can hurt a bit.”
It’s clear the concerns of players, not just Norway’s are known by organisers. We saw efforts by a group of volunteers at Ottawa’s Landsdowne Stadium to water the pitch. Bless them, it was a thankless task. There is no sprinkler system installed so what looked very much like a fireman’s hose was waved around the pitch with one man directing the flow of water and then I’m not joking, 30 people behind him with this huge hose resting on their shoulders.
It would have taken hours to get water all over the pitch properly and that’s not taking into account that the weather at the moment in Ottawa is hot and sunny. Evaporation is a natural process and I’m afraid on this occasion the fireman’s hose and the fantastic efforts of those volunteers was not going to beat mother nature.
England’s stance on the pitches has been so far quite diplomatic. Yes, most of the players have said they would prefer to be playing on grass and not artificial turf, but I’ve lost count of the times I’ve heard them say “it’s the same for both sides.”
However, the issue of dry surfaces and the lack of watering has brought opinion. Striker Eniola Aluko told me: “it definitely makes a difference when the pitch is too dry, 100%. The ball just doesn’t roll at the speed you want it to and the bounce holds up.
With the heat, they just don’t seem to have got enough water down. They watered the pitch twice before we played Mexico and it was a hot day so it makes no difference at all, the water was all gone. There’s not enough water going down. It affects quite a few things, your joints also get a little sore as well.”
It’s surprising watering of pitches is a problem considering the expense of laying the artificial surfaces in the first place. It’s as if someone just forgot to factor in a sprinkler system. In the UK, any decent artificial surface whether used for football, hockey or whatever gets an absolute soaking before a game and at half time. I know, I’ve stood by the side of a pitch and got absolutely drenched when the little sprinkler cap pops up without any prior warning!
The players want, expect and deserve the surface to be wet, it speeds the game up and makes it a little, just a little bit more like natural grass. So whether it’s a bloke on a tractor with 2 bowsers of water at the Olympic Stadium in Montreal or the best efforts of Ottawa’s volunteers, it’s clear this issue has been overlooked.
