Half hearted Halifax again, I despair I really do. Get it dug up and relaid. Sportsman, Mallinsons 777, 4.2 % Mmm!

It may be a silly thought, I often have them but is there no sort of system that could use coverings that could be pulled on and off before and after heavy periods of rain or snow.

These are the times of course that are hitting the pitch hardest, if you could keep the worst off then there would be less to drain away.

Without a drainage system there's nowhere for the rainfall to go. If you cover it where are you going to put the water that collects? The only way is to have a pumping system, dumping the water into the forest areas to the North of the stadium?

Blumming Heck. We've sent men to the moon, allegedly! Just give us a pitch to play on! Grove, shudds. Hawkshead Lakeland Gold 4.4 % Mmm!

We didn't send anyone to the moon. NASA did

With that sort of spend, I'd expect a pitch ON the moon

Yes, I work in construction, there must be existing top water and foul water drainage systems already in place not only for the pitch but for the areas around the pitch but without seeing the drawings it's guess work. The Council will have the drainage plans and know what's in place.

Any run off from when the pitch was covered would go into the surrounding drainage which seems to cope a lot better than the pitch does.
The size and type of covering would be the problem.

If anyone put up a "bomb" though we could go for a pint while we were waiting for it to come back down.

There would be no atmosphere at all, just like being at odsal!

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.