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Leeds United FC is set for a bumper payday as the crop of potatoes they’ve been growing where their pitch should be is finally due for harvest.
Groundsman Simon Williams told us, “Some premier league clubs would baulk at the idea of growing vegetables ‘inside’ the playing surface used by hundreds of millions of pounds worth of footballing assets each week, but this is Yorkshire, and we do things differently here.
“Some clubs would like a playing surface that looks like a billiard table, whereas here at Leeds we prefer a more ‘agricultural’ look. We consider it a homage to our great pitches of the late 60s and 70s.
“It’s quite difficult to get a pitch to play this way given the modern technology available to us groundsmen these days, so we thought the best way to bring back the good old days was to plant some potatoes across the entire pitch.
“Anyone who watched us getting beaten by Aston Villa on Saturday will have seen how successful we’ve been in recreating a surface reminiscent of the winters of the 1960s. And we’ve done that while growing about 40 tonnes of lucrative potatoes, the revenue from which will go straight towards Marcelo Bielsa’s summer transfer pot.
“Or the club could use it to pay for a haircut for Luke Ayling, whichever the club deem most important.”
Williams added, “I will apologise in advance though, because once we’ve harvested the potatoes, the playing surface might return to one more befitting a premier league football team, which could annoy a few of our footballing purists.
“I suppose we would always just plant some leeks for the rest of the season instead?”
