Derry City manager Kenny Shiels has called on the FAI to take action over the quality of pitches in the League of Ireland after claiming he substituted players due to the condition of the Eamonn Deacy Park surface last night.
City drew 0-0 with Galway last night in a game of few chances – with the Derry boss enraged by the conditions in what was their second game against Shane Keegan's men in the last two weeks.
He told Highland Radio and BBC Radio Foyle: "The way we play the game is to try to play with ball retention, to try to play with intelligence and creativity, but if you’re having to take extra touches to control the ball, it just equalises everything.
"The other team, especially a big physical team like that, can get in and batter you about. If you look at a couple of players you will see the condition they are in now, Ben Doherty and Aaron McEneff. I had to take them off. I had to take footballers off the pitch because of the pitch."
Shiels stopped the interview at one point to bring Doherty and McEneff from the dressing-room to the media to highlight their knocks.
He continued: "Football teams need a pitch to play on. That’s twice we have come down here and the pitch has been awful. And look at the place; it’s beautiful.
"They [the FAI] bring a delegate along and if you step one foot outside the dugout they are down on you like a ton of bricks. But they don’t care about the football pitch.
"Why do they not care about the football pitch? I’m so angry about the condition of the pitch. We want to play, entertain. The Galway supporters are deprived of better football. It stopped us from winning the game."
Shiels praised the facilities at Galway and said he would rather play in a park than at some of the League of Ireland stadiums, including The Showgrounds in Sligo, due to the pitch.
"We have been talking about it quite a while now. Most of the games we play when we travel – the team makes the pitch....they try to equalise (with the pitch) because of the way we play. I thought that was an absolute disgrace. I said it before the game that what is important is football is an entertainment game.
"We resorted to playing like them when we started to kick it long in the second half because the pitch was too bumpy. We couldn’t play. It’s a deterrent from playing football the way the pitch was. It just equalised everything in a game where they had their first shot at goal after 75 minutes.
"They had two more quite quickly. But the pitch was horrible. What we have here is a beautiful building, a beautiful complex, a great infrastructure, lovely dressing-rooms, lovely stand. It's absolutely brilliant.
"But the League of Ireland has to get their act together. The important thing is not the beautiful stand. I’d rather play on a park pitch as long as it’s good and that was outrageous.
"It was the same two weeks ago when we came here, it was the same when we went to Sligo. The pitch wasn’t watered or treated properly for the product of football. We can’t produce quality on a pitch like that."
