That would honestly be the first time I have ever heard of anyone playing football on it complaining!

Looks like there may be a few sports looking at these new ipitch's - Including English football. I would guess that Widnes' pitch would be under scrutiny from people other than RL fans and officials. Widnes are even named in this article.

Artificial pitches a step closer to a return in English football
rlhttp://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/football/17064905rl

For all the pro's and cons mentioned up to now about the pitch its sound investment for the club. www.trustinwidnes.com/forum/inde ... 811.0.html It cost £500,000, will make around £200,000 in revenue a year and we wont have to relay it. Fantastic work by the club imo combined with the monthly stronghold membership. Widnes Vikings will be a sustainable club for many years to come thanks to SOC

For all the pro's and cons mentioned up to now about the pitch its sound investment for the club. www.trustinwidnes.com/forum/inde ... 811.0.html It cost £500,000, will make around £200,000 in revenue a year and we wont have to relay it. Fantastic work by the club imo combined with the monthly stronghold membership. Widnes Vikings will be a sustainable club for many years to come thanks to SOC

I guess that remains to be seen.

Well from this recent month every night of the week, the pitch has been utilised by the community. Like you said it still remains to be seen however providing nothing spectacular goes wrong, we're in for a winner.

From a business stance it's a brilliant, brilliant investment already (pitch is in full use every night including club sponsored touch rugby) and one a clubs such as your own would love to have, without question!

We have been the first to go in and thus are getting all the injury questions etc etc. But trust me until the pitch is PROVED to cause any extra damage than any other surface I'd say a lot of other clubs will be seriously looking at getting one themselves, especially those who are still to move into new stadia.

It does have a 5-10 year life expectancy on it depending on how well it's maintained I believe. But compare that to the old Stobart pitch that needed doing once a year it's still a huge plus and I doubt a relaid surface would need the full £500k job either.

I refer the right honourable gentleman to my previous response.

Just to set you right then... IT IS BEING SEEN!

Well the club has been well advised on how to keep it in top condition. I remember reading somewhere that the pitch can be re-newed back to its full standard at a price of £10,000, which in five years time as you say would be nothing to the club as it would have already made revenue from the pitch 50 times that.

Not really - we're 3 rounds in and it's suitability as a playing surface is far from proven; when the fabled 'summer rugby' kicks in, we'll be able to see if the injuries that have been attributed to it thus far were caused by the weather, or are a feature of the pitch in all conditions.

As it stands, it's folly to either wholly condemn or wholly endorse it, and you're as guilty of the latter as the people you argue against are of the former; as much as the North Korean style propaganda coming out of Widnes shows admirable loyalty to the club, you'd be better advised keeping your powder dry until the empirical evidence is available.

Good stuff, I'm all in favour of it. The pitch looks fantastic and I'd love to have a kick about on it. I envisage a caveman meets iphone sort of reaction to it. I just can't imagine sliding on it, having only ever played on 20 year old astroturf pitches.

My comments were relating purely to do the business side of it.

Have said previously playing surface can only be judged long term. But ATM it's not considered an issue.