Home»All Photographs»Dartford FC 2024-25»11 January 2025 Pitch Inspection

11 January 2025. After a night of -5 degree temperatures, the pitch covers needed to be removed and the pitch inspected ahead of the Chichester City match scheduled for a 3pm ko. It was decided to start taking the pitch covers off at 9am and a referee called to inspect the pitch at 10am ahead of Chichester City travelling from 11am. You can see from the images that the frost was still laying and as work started with a team of volunteers to take out the pegs and then move and fold up the huge and quite heavy pitch covers to the side of the pitch. The ground still felt hard underneath and the referee's decision was to postpone the match. The volunteers (a group pic of some, taken before the latecomers appeared) then started heaving the covers to the side of the pitch. The more the merrier were needed to make this job easier and less demanding. As the sun rose and brightened the scene, the part of the pitch still in shadow was still covered in frost on the covers. It was decided to leave them in place until the frost melts over the weekend as temperatures are expected to rise above freezing by Monday. If supporters are interested in giving their time and energy to helping with this type of volunteering, please don't be shy.