Pitch perfect for exciting new 3G era

Erith Town may have proved partypoopers on Ashford United’s big day at Homelands on Saturday but there was no hiding the excitement as the club finally staged their first senior match on the new 3G pitch. Malcolm Parker, one of the band of volunteers who helped lay the new surface, described it as “beautiful” while former chairman Ernie Warren, another member of the working parties who spent many hours at the club during the close season doing jobs around the ground, hailed it as “the way forward for clubs at this level.” Owner Don Crosbie proudly revealed that the club hosted football every night last week, including the under18s’ 2-1 Ryman Youth League Cup win over Eastbourne Borough on Thursday night Junior matches followed on Sunday morning, with Brake Brothers hosting a charity match in the afternoon. United new chief executive Denise Peach said: “It looks fabulous – it is going to help us no end with the revenue it brings in from hiring it to support the football. “It helps Don leave a legacy here, which was always his intention. “He is tired at this point because he has worked for so many hours. We have both worked for three months without a day off. “I pushed wheelbarrows around and did anything that needed doing and just joined in because we are a team, a family and have got the same goals and purpose. I didn’t mind mucking in.” Parker added: “Don’s enthusiam is infectious but it wasn’t easy at all. It was carpet-layer’s work on a bigger scale. The carpet rolls were four metres wide and weighed something like a ton and a half. It took four men to move them. “Now it’s done, it looks lovely and I and all the other volunteers can feel we have achieved something.” Warren, an Ashford supporter since the early 60s before being invited off the terraces to join the board in 1983, spent eight years as chairman. Now to be seen selling programmes on matchdays or, as he was on Saturday, manning a turnstile together with Parker, he said: “It has been a long time coming but it has all been well worth it. “A lot more non-league clubs will eventually go the same way, providing they can afford it.It is the only way forward for the club. It looks smart and slick. The old pitch was looking tired after 25 years, with not a lot of money spent on maintaining it. “People who were here before, like Southern League chairman Doug Gillard and Alan and Audrey Lancaster, would have loved it. “All the work they put in to bring the club here, I am sure it would get their blessing. “Ashford is a town continuing to grow and the audience will do the same with success. All we need now is results, but I am sure they will come. “The players have got to get adjusted to it but Erith didn’t come to make up the numbers.”