How are sports clubs coping with drought?

Current drought conditions are threatening to cause problems ahead of the new sporting season, say many grassroots clubs across the South East.

Teams have been warned about heading out on to bone-dry, cracked and uneven pitches caused by the prolonged hot and dry weather.

It has led the FA to issue new guidance and the Rugby Football Union (RFU) to suspend fixtures until late September, with sides advised to speak to their groundskeeper or pitch provider about postponing or relocating games if required.

Angela Walters, head of girls' football at Beacon Hill FC in Hindhead, Surrey, described the state of their pitches as "a huge concern" and called player safety "paramount".

Walters said that, despite having invested in an artificial, all-weather 3G pitch, only half of the 40 teams at the club would benefit from it, with the rest still playing on grass.

"It's dangerous to play on them [the grass pitches] because the surfaces are so hard, particularly when it comes to tackling or goalkeepers throwing themselves around," she told BBC Radio Surrey.

Walters added that a lot of matches would likely end up being postponed, with every club having to be "pretty sensible" when it came to making that call.

"Ultimately, it'll be left to referees to finally decide if pitches are unplayable, which looks to be the case as things stand."

Nick West-Oram, CEO of Surrey FA said there was "no blanket ban or postponement" on football fixtures, but rather "each pitch and match should be looked at on a case-by-case basis".

Clubs should "risk-assess their own pitches' playability", he added, while each league should decide whether or not games go ahead.

Where possible matches should be rescheduled and he urged for sanctions not to be imposed on clubs unable to do so.

Vicky Wilson, head of women's rugby at Camberley Rugby Club in Surrey, described its four pitches as "looking like the Sahara desert".

"You're just kicking up dust when you walk on them, while the ground is set so hard it might as well be concrete," she said.

Wilson called the RFU's recent ruling that no games should be played before 21 September "tough, but necessary".

"Even pre-season training is being affected, it's that bad," she added.

Revenue streams would also be hit, she said, because "if people know the games aren't on, they simply won't come to the club".

However, the battle to defy the drought is being waged a little better at Kent's Gillingham FC.

Its home ground, Priestfield Stadium, has huge water tanks which channel rain water and store it for just such an emergency.

"When it's wet, all the water that comes off the stands goes down our guttering and fills up these tanks," said groundskeeper Haydn Lawrance.

"Then, when it's dry, we'll open the tanks up and solely run the place off rain water."

Similarly, Kent County Cricket Club has installed a new sustainable irrigation and borehole system at its St Lawrence Ground in Canterbury to keep the grass green.

It cost around £50,000, but the club believe it will play for itself within five years with the money they will save from not using mains water.

Josh Marden, the deputy head of groundstaff, called it "a complete gamechanger".

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