THE sparkling pitch at The Valley withstood around 80 games last season but now the grass has been scraped and a new surface is being prepared for the 2005-06 campaign.

While supporters gleefully watched Crystal Palace players sink to the lush green turf on May 15 - after Jonathan Fortune's late headed equaliser condemned them to relegation - they would see a very different picture if they sat in the stands now.

The playground of their Addicks heroes now resembles a ploughed field, although there are seeds of change in the place.

Head groundsman Paddy Powell and his pitch staff have been busy reseeding as the close season turf transition gathers momentum - and he took time off from a hectic schedule to explain the process.

He said: "It starts with the top layer of dirt coming off, a process that we call 'corrowing off'. This is when the grass comes off together with the 35 millimetres of dirt.

"We then put fibre sand on which is spread all across the pitch and that helps everything to knit together more strongly. It's a man-made substance that holds everything in place and we've been using it for a few years now but it needed topping up.

"At the minute it looks like a ploughed field, completely covered in dirt, but after it's reseeded, then away we go. I'm hopeful it will be in very good shape by August 6, which is the first friendly."

Powell was happy with his team's efforts last term and admitted the weather had been on his side for much of the campaign.

"We work hard on maintaining the pitch so I'm pleased with how it held up last season," he said. "With the Premiership, reserves and then the corporate games, there were roughly 80 matches in all and we did a good job.

"The Crystal Palace game looked more like the start of the season than the end so I was quite pleased with it and I thikn the players were as well, which is the important thing.

"We have also been quite lucky with the weather this year, especially with the amount of rain. You're either lucky or unlucky in terms of being home or away when the rain comes and most of the time last season we were away when it rained."

Powell admits he spends his life at the club, making sure the players have the perfect stage to showcase their talents; but while their form may be erratic, for Powell consistency is the key.

He explained: "There is a different pressure being a groundsman compared to a player. As a player you go out there and either have a blinder or a nightmare, but if you're a groundsman and a few things go wrong people want to know why.

"It's always a bit of a worry when you dig it all up and start again, but once you see the grass starting to show you feel a lot better."