A LLANDUDNO football club has said they face a “huge problem” as their pitch remains unavailable, forcing them to play every game away from home.
Llandudno Albion FC, who play in the Ardal Leagues North West (Welsh third tier), share the OPS Wind Arena with Cymru North side Llandudno FC.
However, they have played just one home game since September, after an inspection of the pitch at the OPS Wind Arena by UEFA and the FAW found a “slight health and safety issue in one area of the pitch”.
This has forced the home games of both clubs to be cancelled, with Llandudno FC recently stating they were “doing everything in our power” to get the pitch sorted, which is not expected to be remedied until March or April.
A Llandudno FC statement in late December said: “We want assure you we are doing everything in our power to have a full new pitch installed.
“Pending the outcome of a funding bid, ongoing fund raising efforts and being able to top up our sinking fund according to ever increasing prices we hope to complete a full pitch replacement in March/April 2023.
“The new installation is weather dependent so the proposed dates are probably most realistic.”
But this does not help rivals Llandudno Albion FC, who say the situation, and anticipated months-long wait, present a ‘huge problem’ for an already-struggling club.
MORE: Llandudno FC game this weekend moved due to ‘health and safety’ issue with pitch
In a statement, the club said the pitch has been “unplayable”, adding: “It’s got to a point now where we only have a small amount of away fixtures left to play and with the announcement that the new pitch at Llandudno FC won’t be ready until March/April at the earliest gives us a huge problem.
“We have reached out to neighbouring teams to use their facilities and we thank Conwy Borough who hosted a fixture before Christmas and Glan Conwy who offered to host, but this was rejected by the League as the ground isn’t to Tier 3 standards.
“We can understand other clubs reluctance to let us use their pitch given the time of the year and traffic already on these grass pitches.
“This leaves us facing the likelihood of playing every remaining game away from home at the opponents venue.”
With the amount of travel in the league “already far too much for a team” at their level, the doubling of away games and travel, along with existing costs for match officials and pitch hire, put the club in a difficult position.
The statement added: “We are hoping a proposal we made is accepted which will ease the burden slightly.
“We are hoping that that we can separate ourselves from the bottom end of the table with avoiding relegation being the main objective now.
“Please get behind the lads where possible as we will need every bit of support.”
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