[El Car]

These pitches should not be allowed in the top two divisions of the Scottish League football at all.  Aside from the obvious advantage they give the home side they do cause injuries that you don't get generally on grass.  It is very rare that a grass pitch causes an injury but you do hear of them from games on artificial surfaces.  Its been a big topic over here as some MLS teams play on them, but now they are talking about getting rid.

As regards the money, the authorities should allocate money to pay for it.  If all four divisions in England can do it, then they can in Scotland as well.

I don't personally think they should be used in professional matches, but at the same time I accept that there are circumstances that make it preferential to trying to play on an unaffordable or very poor surface. They're not as good as even half-decent grass pitches and they do help cause injuries - anyone who says otherwise is just clueless or full of shit. However, what I would say about the injury thing is that they cause different injuries, but not necessarily more of them. Waghorn picked up a particular injury against Kilmarnock, but maybe he gets an injury on a grass pitch too from falling badly, just a different type. Knee injuries aren't exactly new to Rangers and the worst have happened on grass pitches. And one thing that I've seen mentioned in a couple of places is that they can provide a community benefit if the stadia that use them are open to the public as well.

So basically, while I'm not a fan of them in pro football, especially at the top levels, I don't have anything against them per se. Warburton has made it clear all season that they'e not a valid excuse when it comes to results, and we've played on enough of them this season on top of using them in training to have adapted. But if we can find the money to make it an option to do away with them we should. When the SPL stole the prize money it owed Rangers for the 2011/12 season it could have used that to subsidise 5 or 6 good surfaces instead of just dishing it out to the remaining cubs. I suppose the only problem with that is that the top flight isn't a closed shop, so you could help set up a very good pitch only to see the club in question go down and a side with a substandard pitch coming up.