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With the Second and Third Division season set to kick off this weekend, the national football association wrote to every amateur club on Monday to address the growing concern around field conditions.
Municipalities Step In as Watering Bans Spread
Local governments are responsible for keeping football pitches in playable condition, and in areas like Westland, where a watering ban has been active for over a week, clubs have already been told they cannot use their grass fields at all while the restriction remains in place.
Dick Hartman, secretary of FC 's Gravenzande, explained just how limited things have become. Out of eleven pitches the club normally relies on, only three remain usable, since those are fitted with artificial turf. From afar, he said, the natural grass pitches might still look reasonably green, but a closer look tells a different story, with dry patches spreading fast. Once those patches turn yellow, he warned, they essentially become stretches of bare sand.
To try and save the situation, the club has applied for permission to use tap water instead of pulling water from nearby ditches. Meanwhile, volunteers are working through what Hartman called a massive scheduling puzzle, trying to fit every team's training sessions onto just three available pitches.
He didn't rule out the possibility of cancelled matches down the line. If it comes to that, tough calls will need to be made about which teams get to play and which don't. Hartman said he's hoping it never reaches that point, joking that the club has taken to doing a daily rain dance in hopes the weather finally turns.
Limburg Clubs Face the Same Struggle
The situation looks much the same in Limburg, where grass pitches have dried out and hardened, creating serious concern among smaller clubs that don't have access to artificial turf as a backup option.
SNC'14, based in Noordbeek, has resorted to borrowing training grounds from other clubs just to keep sessions running. Club chairman Jean Demollin admitted it's been a real headache to organize. He's also bracing for things to get harder once league matches begin, warning that the club may be forced to relocate fixtures or start the season with a string of away games. That hasn't happened yet, he said, but he's not optimistic that it can be avoided.
