ICT giving serious thought to artificial surface
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CALEY Thistle are giving serious consideration to having an artificial playing surface at Tulloch Caledonian Stadium.
Chairman Kenny Cameron has told The Courier that the club’s board have looked into replacing the current grass pitch with a synthetic one.
After winning promotion, Hamilton Accies will be the only top flight club in Scotland with an artificial surface having installed the FIFA-accredited Tigerturf, but there are plenty of teams in the lower leagues who have chosen to seek an alternative to grass.
In the Championship, Falkirk, Queen of the South and Alloa have synthetic pitches, likewise Stenhousemuir, Airdrie and Forfar from League One, and League Two side’s Annan, Clyde, Montrose and East Stirling.
Cameron insists Caley Thistle are very much open to the idea of following suit, especially after the amount of both senior and under-20 fixtures took a severe toll on the club’s playing surface last season, resulting in a five-figure sum having to be spent on it to make sure it is ready for the new campaign.
One drawback, however, is raising the cash necessary to fund such a project, with the pitches used by Hamilton and Alloa estimated to have cost around £400,000 each. The Scottish Professional League also need any artificial grass to be off at least a FIFA 2-star standard.
But if money can be found by Caley Thistle’s board, then it is something Cameron and his fellow directors would give very serious thought to.
"We had 35 games on our pitch following the replacement of the old surface last year," he said. "Given the newness of the surface, this was undoubtedly too many games.
"Unfortunately we are in a catch-22 situation. We receive funding from the Scottish Football Association for playing our under-20 games at the stadium and this is much-needed revenue for the club.
"However, a slight relaxation in the way they determine the payments would assist clubs in protecting their playing surfaces.
"On artificial pitches, this is the way ahead for all community clubs and we have looked at various options.
"At present, the costs are a bit prohibitive, but it is something we are seriously looking at as a long-term solution.
"If we could raise the finance, it would certainly be a viable business proposition."
Cameron also conceded that Caley Thistle could relocate from their Fort George training base in the future as part of plans to develop the Torvean and Charleston areas in conjunction with the Inverness bypass project, but insisted both the management team and players were happy with the facilities currently at their disposal.
"Some may say that our facilities may not be the best in the league, but they are more than acceptable and the management team and players are happy with what we have," he said.
"As we all know, there are teams with far larger budgets than ours, who have state-of-the-art facilities, but regularly underperform, so it is not all about what you have in terms of facilities, but more about what you are as a club and the environment you foster as part of your club ethos.
"We would like to have better facilities, but we do not have huge sums to spend on this.
"We have had early discussions with Highland Council regarding the possibility of all-weather facilities in conjunction with other sports clubs in the Torvean area as part of the West Link road project and we will continue this dialogue."
Meanwhile, Caley Thistle are close to unveiling another shirt sponsor for next season.
Last month, the club agreed a six-figure, one-year rolling contract with sandwich chain Subway to become their main sponsor, replacing the Orion Group, who had their logo on the front of the shirt and a web address for jobs within the company on the back, across the top.
With Orion deciding to end their deal at the end of last season, it will now mean Caley Thistle will have three sponsors on their kit for the forthcoming campaign.
"We were delighted to get Subway on board as our new main sponsor and we hope to announce a new sponsor for the back of our shirts in the next week or so," said Cameron.
"It is the first time we have had three different sponsors for our kit with Subway being our main club sponsor, Allied Surveyors being our short sponsor and this new company being our back of the shirt sponsor.
"We look forward to working hard with our new sponsors to engage with the fans in terms of product offers and incentives."
BILLY Mckay received his seventh cap this week when he started Northern Ireland’s 2-0 friendly defeat by World Cup-bound Chile.
Caley Thistle’s top scorer for the last two season’s was given 62 minutes in Valparaiso before being substituted.
