Motherwell are desperate to get back to playing at home on a decent surface. The club have three more games to play as the home team before the end of the season and have sought advice from a team of experts to improve drainage on their pitch. The first of the three home games comes on Saturday against rivals for third spot Hibs and some short term repairs have enabled the game to go ahead to Fir Park as scheduled. 'Well manager Mark McGhee has been one of the biggest critics of the playing surface at Fir Park and is glad to see that some action, albeit on a temporary basis, has taken place. However the Motherwell board are willing to invest to find a permanent solution to their problems at the end of May when the season ends.
A statement from Motherwell chief executive Ian Stillie, on the club's official website, said: "Investigations involving third-party experts concluded that the particles meshing with the clay-based soil have hardened around the undersoil heating pipes and created an impermeable layer below the root zone surface. That has made natural drainage of the pitch difficult and the problem was exacerbated by the record rainfall of the past three months. At present the short-term work appears to have overcome the identified issue. The drainage process is a short-term fix to potentially fulfil our remaining SPL fixtures at Fir Park. Simultaneously, with this remedial action, we are assessing the scope of work for a permanent solution to this issue during the summer."
