| We came closest at Boundary Park at Oldham on New Years Day 1991 when Mark Stimson scored in his own goal in injury time when we were leading 1-0, and that was our last appearance on that surface. When I was 'knocking off' the 92 league grounds I visited Preston's Deepdale when that was a plastic pitch, and on that particular day they went 6-0 up against Shrewsbury before half-time. It was ridiculous, the Preston players were used to it, wore tracksuit bottoms, while Shrewsbury players were sliding into tackles ... leaving 2ft of skin behind on the pitch!
The Luzhniki stadium, which will host this season's Champions League final, has an artificial surface which did not impress the Celtic boss Gordon Strachan during a training session yesterday. And he referred to Dunfermline's situation three seasons ago where, despite East End Park being chosen as a guinea pig by UEFA for their experiment with plastic pitches, the return leg of the Pars' UEFA Cup second-round qualifier against Icelandic club Hafnarfjordur was moved to St Johnstone's McDiarmid Park. Strachan: "Dunfermline had to change their game to St Johnstone so I find it very strange. "They were never given a choice - but one club is very rich and the other isn't so rich. "Spartak's pitch is not good for dribbling on, put it that way. It's a sticky surface and the ball doesn't move well. "If you spin a ball at somebody it is exaggerated because there is so much rubber underneath. "I wouldn't have liked playing on it because I like to move the ball and have a go at people and get the ball to feet. "So we have to look at our tactics because dribbling is a problem. "We had a full practice match on the pitch this morning and we normally don't do that. But it was useful because we found out what we could do and what we couldn't do." |
Where is this story leading? Well ... Celtic are being forced by UEFA to play their Champions League third-round qualifier against Spartak Moscow on a plastic pitch.