Nice article from Matt Dickinson in today’s Times.
Fabio Capello road rage likely in Wembley pitch battle
Word reaches this column that Fabio Capello is unhappy about the FA’s handling of Wembley Stadium. And not just because the surface on which he must get England to pass the ball was transformed at the weekend into a playground for petrolheads.
Capello’s agitation is that he wants the grass on the pitch at Wembley to be precisely 17 millimetres high – and we mean precisely. As a stickler for detail, it is possible to imagine him marching out there with measuring tape. And then returning the next day to check if it has grown another micrometre.
The problem is that the groundsman believes that it needs to be kept longer and shaggier, particularly with the recovery work that is required after non-footballing events. These have included the trampling by American footballers, the labouring of the roadies who built a stage for Madonna and, on Sunday, the drivers who chased each other around in the rather sorry-looking Race of Champions.
There have been complaints about the surface since the opening game, the FA Cup Final in May 2007, when a turf the consistency of a chocolate brownie made for a soporific game.
“The stadium – and this game – deserves a better pitch,” Slaven Bilic said when he visited with Croatia later that year.
Now the staff must start work on another new surface, trying to grow a thick thatch in limited time with Capello demanding his 17 millimetres.
“We’ve tarmacked Wembley,” the hoardings proclaimed before Sunday’s event, which is something you would have thought they would have kept quiet from the England manager. We’ve turned your pitch into Silverstone, Fabio.
Everyone knows there are bills to pay, but Capello is right to expect that “the world’s best stadium” (as the FA knows it) should have a half-decent playing surface.
