THE pitch at St George’s Lane is as good as I’ve ever seen it during my time at the club.

When I first came to Worcester in the early 1990s, the pitch was always superb throughout pre-season and in the first-half of the campaign but deteriorated over the months.

In more recent times, there has been a lot of football played on it with Evesham United sharing with us and the team also having to train there.

It has shown wear and tear and has become uneven without any grass when it has dried out in the later months of the season.

Come the end of campaigns we have then had to rip it apart and reseed the whole lot, which doesn’t leave the grass very thick.

We didn’t have to do that over the summer and now the grass is thick and the roots are deeper. It is 100 per cent better than it was at the start of last season.

That is due to fewer games but also because of all the hours of hard work put in by our groundsmen Paul Humphries and Tom Allcut. Having dedicated staff makes a huge difference.

The expertise of director Mike Davis has also been a major factor as well because he’s very knowledgable in that area.

Then there’s the Institute of Groundsmanship who look after Tom with his apprenticeship, while the watering system, put in for a nominal cost, has allowed us to get plenty of water on to the pitch throughout the week.

It has all been invaluable and that’s why the surface is as good as it is at the moment and I think we are reaping the benefits.

In last Saturday’s 2-1 defeat against Stalybridge Celtic we passed the ball very well and we know the players are capable of doing that.

It’s sometimes frustrating when it hasn’t clicked for us.

When you put in a good performance like that, even though I didn’t think we got what we deserved, the surface plays its part.

It makes me smile when you see the farcical scenes in Poland on Tuesday night when England’s World Cup qualifier was called off because of a waterlogged pitch in a multi-million pound stadium that had a roof.

The pitch at the Lane drains very well and, although we may lose games in the winter to snow or heavy frost, I would be quite surprised if a game got called off because of a waterlogged pitch.

It would have to be monsoon-like for that to happen.