Don Hutchison, formerly of Liverpool and the Spam, has revealed West Ham's masterplan for defeating us last weekend, relayed to him by ex-teammate Brad Friedel. Rather typically, it didn't involve superior tactics or a fantastic passing game, but what he refers to as a trick: "And believe me, these little tricks still go on at all levels. I was working with Brad Friedel the other week and we were talking about Tottenhamâs performance â or lack of one â at West Ham on the opening day of the season. I couldnât believe how bad they were, having tipped them for top four. Bradâs response was really interesting. He told me Sam Allardyce had let the grass on Upton Park grow an extra six inches and the Spurs players knew it from the first moment they walked out before the game. They couldnât pass the ball properly because the grass was that bit longer and it was getting held up in the turf. They struggled all game because of it and were bailed out at the end with a last-minute winner. Itâs crazy what goes on in football that you donât see on TV." By the time that they face Man City in late October I expect that it'll be around waist height and for their final home game against Everton you should only be able to see the players' heads. This won't disadvantage the Academy of Hoofball at all, as they prefer to keep the ball as elevated as possible at all times. This is pretty standard stuff from old Sami "I should be managing Real Madrid" Allardici, as he used to do similar things at Bolton. When he managed to get them into Europe it revealed his fondness for the smallest pitch possible, for example. The Premier League allowed for one that was noticeably different to UEFA's normal rules, so The Reebok ended up with a confused mess on the sidelines, drawing two different dimensions every week. Let's all just be glad that football won the day this time, I guess.
That's really not surprising, Allardyce will go through any measure to make it difficult for a proper footballing side, though being a bit nit-picky, was it really 6 inches? Or do you reckon Brad meant 6 centimetres? 6 inches is a substantial length for grass to be at and would've been noticeable to everyone.
Men are notoriously bad judges of what is 6 inches and what isn't Anyway, is there any link to this PNP?
Fergie used to cut the grass to different lengths and adjust the pitch size depending on who they were playing and which players he had available i believe. I doubt it was 6 inches. The grass in my garden is 6 inches and it looks like a jungle
Brad meant 6cm (60mm) . A quick look around suggests that 60mm is the longest that league regulation pitch grass is allowed to be grown to, and that 20-35mm seems to be the typical range during a season.
This has been going on for over 20 years. John Beck, when he was manager at Cambridge United in the early nineties, had the groundsman grow the grass longer in all four corners and also heavily sand those areas to help hold the ball up. To further encourage the players to land the ball in the areas, he had four huge bright yellow signs erected halfway up the floodlights, so the players had a target to aim at when humping the ball to the corners. Beck and Allardyce justify this tactic by calling it a "long pass" as opposed to a "long ball". The tactic is baaed on stats which say a higher percentage of chances are created by balls in from the corner areas than from a long hoof down the middle.
"The tactic is based on stats which say a higher percentage of chances are created by balls in from the corner areas than from a long hoof down the middle." Cue Powerspurs ...
But the grass isn't greener at West Ham. When they do cut it, we'll probably find out what happened to Joe Cole.
He's on the bench at the most boring Villa team I've ever had the misfortune to watch. Anyone who's underwhelmed by their club's summer transfer window should compare it to them: Senderos, Joe Cole, Kieran Richardson, Cissokho and Carlos Sanchez.
The grass may have been longer, but we still managed to steam-roller them, and make hay while the sun shone, cutting in from all angles, proving that our boys are not men of straw. This is a very serious subject, and I'm glad to see that wumming has been kept to a minimum on this thread.
As others have said, it's nothing new and some clubs took it to unbelievable extremes. In the 70s and 80s Liverpool City Council made it a criminal offence for anyone not wearing a red shirt to enter the home team's penalty area at Anfield.
