Striker unhappy with City pitches

Last updated : 29 January 2011 By Michael Morris
From the stand we can see that the surface at the CCS is struggling and that won't be helped by the Blues playing on it today, 3 days before we face Reading on Tuesday.

But Bothroyd spoke out about the conditions of the pitches before then removing the comments from the social networking site.

He said, "Our training pitches are the worst in the country along with our pitch!!!" Before adding: "Matchday pitch."

Later Bothroyd continued: "Our pitch is just mud and sand, just bobbly. Great stadium, great fans, great training ground, everything is great except pitches."

The lack of specialist lights to help repair the pitch has not helped but at the time the club was trying to overcome sever financial difficulties that resulted in a transfer embargo so pitch repairing lights were not as essential as some of the other bills.

In a statement, chief executive Gethin Jenkins said: "We are aware of the comments made by one of our players on Thursday.

"As a part of our ongoing pitch maintenance program, we have had turf experts visit the club on several occasions, including a visit this week.

"The reason for the current condition of pitch is partly down to some of the coldest weather in 100 years. We recognise the need for lights to help the growth, but these cost more than £300,000 to purchase, plus considerable running costs. When these lights were needed to be ordered we were under a transfer embargo and our priority at that time was to address some of the fundamental issues concerning the club and the business.

"The ground staff at Cardiff City Stadium have worked tirelessly this year to ensure matches have gone ahead and can't be praised enough.

"Naturally as we turn the business around we will look again at lights in the close season.

"In the meantime, we will work hard to get the pitch back up to its normal high standards, helped no doubt by the coming spring."