Newly-promoted League Two football club Harrogate Town has confirmed that it has reached a temporary groundshare agreement with League One team Doncaster Rovers while its new pitch is installed.
Harrogate, which was promoted to the English Football League (EFL) for the first time on Sunday with a 3-1 victory over Notts County at Wembley, plays on a synthetic pitch at CNG Stadium.
EFL regulations state that all matches should be played on grass surfaces, meaning that Harrogate will need to replace the 3G turf at CNG Stadium before playing matches at the venue, which has a current capacity of 3,800. Work began on replacing the pitch earlier today (Tuesday).
Doncaster’s Keepmoat Stadium (pictured) has a capacity of 15,000 and is 42 miles from CNG Stadium. It is anticipated that the groundshare agreement will be in place until October 10, when the new grass pitch at CNG Stadium is set to be ready.
Garry Plant, managing director at Harrogate, told the Press Association news agency: “We’re waiting to see the fixture list, so we can’t say how many home games we’ll play at the Keepmoat at the moment. We’ve got a new stand, which has nearly been completed, which takes us to 5,000 capacity with 1,000 seats, and the floodlights are being upgraded as we speak.
“These are peculiar circumstances which we find ourselves in and the EFL have been aware of that and have given us the nod, so we can crack on.”
The 2020-21 EFL season is due to start on September 12.
Image: Auz/Attribution-ShareAlike 2.0 Generic (CC BY-SA 2.0)/Edited for size
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