Fort William President Richard Gall has voiced concerns over the shinty pitch which will be home to his club at the start of the 2012 shinty season.
Fort William’s Highland Council run An Aird pitch is currently undergoing major maintenance work and it has been out of commission since the late summer.
Fort William hope to start their 2012 shinty campaign at the new £7m Sports Centre at Lochaber High School and continue playing there until An Aird is once again fit for use.
However there are concerns as to whether the new facility will be ready in time for the new shinty season which starts in March 2012. Fort William President Richard Gall spoke out at a recent link-up event attended by representatives from Lochaber Sports Association, Sportscotland and Highland Council’s Active Schools and he is quoted in this week’s Oban Times as asking, “When is the pitch going to be ready and when are we going to be getting it? Nobody seems to be able to tell us. A pitch like that will probably need to be verti-drained two or three times a year. In Lochaber, Highland Council has nobody here qualified to look after grounds – and we need somebody full time.”
Principal PE teacher Jared Simpson, who hosted the event, replied, “No-one has been able to give us a definitive answer as yet. We still have no lines and no goals and we need to have a proper pitch maintenance programme in place, although the new turf seems to be reasonably well embedded now. It’s all still a bit up in the air just now and I’m as keen you are to get answers to all these questions as quickly as possible.”
Richard Gall suggested that an approach should be made to pitch consultant Michael Clark from Kingussie who he referred to as, “one of the top groundsmen in Europe who has made the Dell, Kingussie one of the best playing surfaces in the north of Scotland.”