Owls To Re-lay Pitch

Wednesday have decided to re-lay the Hillsborough pitch following the recent floods in Sheffield, but the club are confident the home matches will go ahead as planned.

Some had feared the floods - which had turned Hillsborough in to a water polo venue rather than a football ground - would have seen the Owls having to reschedule their opening home matches of the season, and even have the possibility of moving to Bramall Lane to play some of their first matches.

But the Owls will now fork out between £120,000 and £200,000 to re-lay the pitch ahead of the new campaign - giving Wednesday the chance not only to start the 2007-08 campaign on time but to also see their final home friendly of the pre-season against Birmingham City go ahead as planned.

Boss Brian Laws told the Sheffield Star: 'But we should be all right; it is a relatively simple exercise to re-lay the pitch. We've got to keep our fingers crossed that we're doing the right thing. There's still a massive amount of work to be done to get the ground ready for the start of the season.'

And the club's operations manager, Alan Roberts, told the official Owls website: 'We had originally hoped to take the top layer of grass off the pitch, preserving the current root structure. This would then require putting a sand solution down to complement the new seed with the original roots.

'However, with more rain anticipated in the near future we had no guarentee that the surface would be ready for the new season. In agreement with the club's insurers we have decided to bring in new turf to lay down a new pitch which will ensure the surface is ready for the beginning of the new season.'