91热爆

How life has changed since I started watching Manchester City at the end of the 1960鈥檚. Games were off for snow, ice, rain and even fog on a regular basis 鈥� or of course they just sharpened their studs and played anyway, as they did back in December 1967 for the so-called 鈥渂allet on ice鈥� when the surface at Maine Road was frozen solid.

Snow: football in all weathers

These days the playing surface, prepared for top level games, looks more like the green baize of a snooker table than the mud bath so often seen at Maine Road during the Malcolm Allison era, when the groundsman of the time, Stan Gibson, was often asked to flood the pitch to give City an advantage! Can you imagine that happening these days?

Roy Rigby and Lee Jackson are the men who look after City鈥檚 playing surfaces these days, but not just the pitch at the City of Manchester Stadium. They also look after 鈥渕ini-Eastlands鈥� and the training complexes at Carrington and Platt Lane. The consistency of the surface must be one of the reasons the quality of passing has improved over the years.

Glorious mud: like in the old days

There is another side to the argument though. When England lost recently in Russia some onlookers blamed the playing surface 鈥� even the defeat at Wembley against Croatia was blamed by some on the fact the pitch had been damaged by the NFL game played there. The accusation was that modern English footballers have never played on anything but perfect surfaces so therefore couldn鈥檛 cope.

Brazilians like Elano grew up playing football in the streets and even on the beach and few players have better control at the South Americans.

So what do you prefer? The perfect, bowling green style pitches of today or the unpredictability of the old days 鈥� like Halifax Town in 1980, when City lost 1-0 on a muddy surface that wouldn鈥檛 be allowed to stage a game these days, or Walsall in 1986 when City won 3-1 in a blizzard?

Ian's column will be published on, or close to, the 17th of each month. If you want to get in touch, e-mail ian.cheeseman@bbc.co.uk. Or use the form below