Last Saturday, in a letter published in Newsday, Mr Wazir Mohammed called the playing surface at the Hasely Crawford Stadium “disgraceful”.
And what is more disturbing, Mr Mohammed, is that the playing surface will continue to deteriorate and no amount of rolling or grading will stop this deterioration. We may soon have to play our World Cup Qualifiers at Lumsden Recreational Ground in Gasparillo, which, in comparison, will look more and more like Wembley.
Earlier this year, when officials of the England Football Association visited Trinidad to inspect our facilities prior to their coming here for our Centennial Match, they said that the playing surface at Hasely Crawford was unacceptable. There were other defects, including the state of the team dressing rooms, where the suspended ceilings were falling apart, and damaging the light fittings.
The ceilings had been damaged by water soaking through the concrete floors above. The water came from melting ice stored on the concrete floor by vendors operating concession booths.
I was part of the TTFF Team which presented the list of defects to the Stadium Management, for transmission to the Minister of Sport.
It should be noted that all of the defects listed had been brought to the Ministry’s attention over the past few years, and all were matters of simple maintenance rather than capital expenditure requirements.
The Ministry agreed to do the maintenance works because England had requested it, another example of us fixing things “for the tourists” when we never fixed them for our own footballers. But, still, let us be thankful, that some work was done, even if locals did not qualify for the improvements on our own.
The dressing rooms were all upgraded, with new air conditioning, electrics, ceilings and new paint, and they looked so good! But the recommendation to seal the concrete floors above was ignored. As a result, by the time the Centennial Match was over, there was water dripping through the brand new ceilings into the dressing rooms and players’ corridors.
Talk about shame! Why melting ice should drip through structural concrete floors topped with polished granolithic is another subject altogether.
But it was the condition of the field which upset Mr Mohammed, and indeed the English FA when they saw it.
The field at Hasely Crawford is planted with an imported grass, which does not produce its own seeds.
Therefore, if any portion is damaged, or dies, it has to be dug out and “sods” of similar grass — which is planted at the North end of the stadium — must be used to replace the damaged section. The imported grass really is very “thin”, and when you walk on the field, you can see the soil below.
Because the grass cover is so thin, wind blown seeds of a very stiff, “clumpy” grass settle on the field and take root.
The more you cut this grass — common name “fowl-foot” grass — the thicker the clumps become. Because this grass seeds itself copiously, every time the field is mowed, fowl-foot grass is literally planted across the field.
So, the more you mow, the worse you make the playing surface, and the more you spread this invasive grass.
The problem therefore feeds on itself, and the field gets worse every time it is mowed. We, the TTFF, called in advice from Terra Firma and from UWI, and suggested that CEPEP crews be brought in to sit and weed out all of the fowl-foot grass.
However, we were advised that the fowl foot grass was so spread that if it was all removed, there would be huge bare patches on the field.
Instead, only the stiffest clumps were removed, some poison was placed on others, and the areas affected were cut very short and watered copiously, providing a temporary acceptable pitch for the England game.
But that was in May. Since then, with the rainy season, and the mowers spreading fowl foot grass seeds, the field has deteriorated to the extent described by Mr Mohammed.
Can anything be done to bring the playing surface back to an acceptable standard? Of course! But that will have to wait for another column, and cannot be completed in time for our next Qualifier, in November.