North End supporters who have been logging on to PNE.Com regularly and checking out the fourth stand webcam will have noticed that the Deepdale surface is already at an advanced stage, only a couple of weeks after being ripped up.

Following a severe scarification process - which involved removing the top 20mm of thatch, laying over 200 tonnes of fresh fibre sand, levelling and re-seeding - the pitch now has a healthy green tinge.

And with over eleven weeks to go before the big kick-off in the Championship, Head Groundsman Pete Ashworth explained that the pitch will be in pristine condition by the time the first round of fixtures comes about on 9^th August.

He said: "Because we finished the season earlier and we weren't in the Play-Offs or at home on the last game of the season, we have managed to get an early start.

"We're going to cut it at the end of the week and after that it's a case of watching out for any diseases. It will thicken up and then we'll have a lovely surface ready for the end of July.

"A few showers at night and sunshine through the day would be ideal but we never get that. The irrigation and drainage is good at Deepdale so we have pretty much prepared for everything this year.

"Last season was hard because we had a total usage figure of just short of 60 by the end of the season in terms of games and training sessions. It's recommended that there should be 30 games a season on a stadium pitch due the lack of light and air movement, so we've had double.

"The rain as well was an absolute nightmare and we must have had five or six games in monsoon-like conditions. In the end it didn't look that good and it wasn't the best to play on, but we got every game on and we can only do what we can do."



Work is also well underway down at Springfields where over £150,000 has been spent in an attempt to combat the flooding problems that dogged the training pitches last season.

A new drainage and irrigation system is in the process of being installed which will hopefully help ensure lush playing surfaces throughout the dull and wet winter months.

Ashworth added: "They are putting a good drainage system in. There's a main drain that is going to run down the full length of the site and then lateral drains every six metres. Once they are finished, they'll be sand slits every 75cm and, touch wood, we'll have fantastic drainage.

"Obviously we need irrigation also. We've got it on one of the pitches but we need it on the others too. They are going to put it in so hopefully we'll be able to handle everything then.

"The first pitch should be completed by the back end of next week because it has got to be ready for when the players are back in pre-season on 1^st July. The other two will be just a bit later, but everything should be complete for the start of the season.



"It is something that has needed to be done. The year before last we got through because it was a relatively dry year but then last summer we had the wettest summer that I have ever known and it just carried through until the winter.

"Now the Club have decided to put some money in to sort the irrigation and the drainage, it means that we can do our jobs because we haven't been able to do general work like cutting and rolling because we haven't had the chance to get on with machinery.

"The weather has been good these last few weeks since the end of the season. To be fair, we are praying for a bit of rain until the irrigation is all up and running but it's better being like it is than the monsoon rains."