The green, green grass of home is looking just that little bit better for Montrose’s footballers of the future.
After the replacement of its Links Park artificial turf with a new £100,000 playing surface, the club has gifted a large portion of its old 3G pitch to Montrose Youth FC for the creation of an all-weather training surface at Kenny Park.
Montrose Youth chairman Bob McCombie said: “We are extremely grateful for this very kind donation by Montrose FC and it will go a long way to improving the facilities we provide for our youngsters.
“We are a very active club and with 13 teams at ages from 8 to 17 years, including three girls’ teams, we are one of the biggest youth set-ups on the east coast of Scotland.
“The demand for floodlit winter training is therefore high and at present we only have a grass surface under the lights at Kenny Park, which can quickly become unplayable. Converting this to an all-weather surface will make a huge difference to so many of our kids.
Links Park chairman Derek Sim said: “We are delighted to see our old pitch go to such a worthy cause.
“We had been trying to sell it on but it was proving both impractical and time-consuming so instead we decided to make the offer to Montrose Youth.
“In the end, it made sense that our turf should support the development of grass-roots football in the town.
“We already have a good relationship with the club as not only do they use Links Park for some of their training and matches, they also provide us with ball boys and girls for all our home games.”