No mention of heating system, but I suppose they could use hot water

A new hybrid surface will be laid and Minards explained: “It’s 90 percent grass but it grows through a carpet, which enables it to be much stronger grass and we will have a full irrigation system associated with it as well. We’re planning to do that as soon as we finish this season, which is quite exciting as well.

From what I understand, these pitches by nature are frost resistant. I think undersoil heating is quite rare these days though I might be wrong I'll need to check. With that in mind and alternatives such as covers I don't think it would be cost effective. Off the top of my head I can't think of a game we've lost to frost in the SL era and that was with a conventional pitch, but there might have been the odd one.

Testimonial games have been hit with the cold, but I can’t remember any league of cup games

Not frost but the infamous Widnes game which was snowed off after minutes, if we’d had undersoil heating on I’d guess the snow wouldn’t have had chance to lay and build up.

True but that’s possibly it. But I think even that game was called off as much for visibility issues as anything else, and under soil heating wouldn’t have stopped that.

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I don't think it would have helped. It wasn't the snow on the ground as much as the visibility.
And I don't think you can have the under soil heating on even you are playing.

Covers with heaters seem to be the modern way to go.

I believe the mesh stops the ground from hardening but I will look it up.

Maybe warm water through the sprinklers?

On another related subject I think the new stand will be a good advertising for possible new fans driving past

It will look excellent from Donny Road, first impressions count for a lot, not forgetting corporate guests arriving for the first time.

Spot on.

Money comes to money.

No new fan was ever going to be attracted to BV as it was. The days where you could get people turning up purely because you were winning are long gone. Sure it keeps the existing fans happy, but a modern family of four was never going to come back to BV again after seeing the facilities even if we'd just beaten Saints 100 to nil. No kid was ever going to drive past the old BV and say to his dad, can we go to a game. Far more likely to now, image means a lot, especially these days.

Sponsors and corporate even more so. It amazes me how well we do in that regard as it is but it can't be easy. What sort of serious businessman or investor was ever going to be impressed as they pulled into the car park and faced the old East stand and by way of a further slap down got a puncture.

New fans want a bit of luxury, bars, good toilets, food etc. The prawn sandwich brigade want even more. They don't care about the viewing angles on the West terrace. They just want their guests to be razzle dazzled by the match day experience, for that they will pay top dollar.

We can sort the rest of BV out in the years to come but the East stand gives the club a focal point, a real presence and at last an element of modest grandeur. Everything we have been lacking for forty years.