A new drainage system has been installed at Hereford FC, after it saw a series of postponements due to a waterlogged pitch last season.
New drains running the length of the Edgar Street pitch have been put in at the non-league ground, where the team avoided relegation from National League North in their final game of the campaign.
Work has begun on removing the turf before the pitch is reseeded ahead of next season.
The club’s founding shareholders contributed towards the cost of the new drainage system, along with England and former Hereford United player Jarrod Bowen.
Hereford FC’s general manager Jamie Griffiths said it was only when contractors started work that they realised why there had been so many problems.
Workers had “gone the opposite direction to the old drainage”, he stated.
He added: “They’ve come across blocked drains, collapsed drains, drains that were below other drains, so it [the system] was expecting water to go uphill, which obviously water’s not too fond of.”
The general manager said he thought those involved in the project had been “pretty lucky with the weather”.
He added that “hopefully come pre-season it’ll be a nice playing surface and come winter we won’t have the headaches that we had”.
“We could do with a nice dry winter anyway just to take away any of the stress,” he said.
Wet weather meant the team had to play home matches in Redditch and Worcester as the postponed games piled up.
They secured their National League North status with a 2-2 draw at home against Peterborough Sports, having at one stage been 11 points adrift.
Griffiths said it was “fantastic” that Bowen, who signed for the club, which was formerly called Hereford United, in 2014, had contributed.
He added it was the West Ham captain who “came to us and kind of said ‘how can I help?'”
“Certainly there was no expectation from us for Jarrod to do anything.
“So it is fantastic that he decided to come along and help.”
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