There is never going to be any middle ground. A small minority of football fans from the Town forum would try and implement the rugby club in the killing of JFK if they could think of a way to do it.

Last summer they put mini drains down the length of the pitch. This summer they are putting them across the width which will tie in with the length ways and supposedly make huge improvements. We shall see.

That will convert it from a swimming pool with lanes to a giant chess board.

Effectiveness will depend on the type of drainage.

If the mini drainage is of the soak away type it works but not as well as traditional drainage, basically the pipes typically have small pre made holes in them that allows any water to slowly seep through them from the surrounding soil into the pipe and then to gradually drain away into the surrounding land or into the water drainage systems.

Draw backs are the holes often get clogged up and the water doesn't get through as well over time and the amount of fall on the pipes especially at these lengths is minimal.

If it empties into surrounding land that can soon become saturated itself so is not very effective, if it's into a proper underground drainage system then it is much better.

Depending what is there you can usually have top water going into a top water and sometimes a shared top water and foul water system but you can't have foul water going into a top water system.

I would have thought Yorkshire Water would be the controlling authority down at the Shay they will know what can and can't be done as will the Borough Engineers.

The point about covering the pitch was to be pro active and try and prevent at least some of the heaviest rain / snow getting on it in the first place but as I say covers could be expensive and not practical.

There is good main drainage from the pitch into the sewer it is just a case of joining up the new drains that they install this summer into the main drain.