We want the best pitch in the league!

Work has already commenced for next season on AFCB’s Dean Court playing surface, as the groundsmen aim to produce one of the Championships’ best surfaces.

Overseen by head groundsman, James Lathwell, work is happening on both the Dean Court pitch as well as the training pitches this summer to make them of a standard that the club can be exceedingly proud of.

Whilst White Horse Contractors from Oxfordshire have come in to help with the renovation, Lathwell spoke to afcb.co.uk:

‘Since the last game all the grass has been removed off the pitch in the stadium and on the training pitches… The pitch will be slightly higher than what it was last season, which should help us hugely with the drainage because with the old pitch, one problem we always had was rainfall. We found the pitch was struggling to cope with the large amounts of water so that`s why we are doing the work, because we always want to produce the best pitch possible for Eddie and his team.’

The heavy rainfall from last year certainly had an impact on the Dean Court pitch and as all were aware, it took some time for the pitch to recover fully. But being a second tier club now, Lathwell is under no illusions as to the standard he wants the playing surface to be at:

‘There has been the big step up. Down in League One the pitches weren’t quite as good. We have got a lot of clubs in the Championship that have been in the Premier League so they`re stepping down. They`ve done works like this a long time ago so they have the facilities… “I always want them to look forward to playing at home because they`re going to have the best pitch possible. This isn`t playing catch up because it`s just being installed and will be better than a lot of the technologies out there, and I`m fairly confident that being in sunny, sunny Bournemouth we can produce a pitch that will be one of the best in the Championship.’