Salford pitch 'the worst I've seen in professional football by far' - Aaron McGowan

Defender Aaron McGowan described the playing surface at Moor Lane as ‘the worst I’ve seen in professional football by far’ – but he accepted it was no excuse for Town’s 2-1 defeat to Salford City on Saturday.

The game was Salford’s first at home in nearly two weeks but the pitch, not helped by heavy rain in the hours before kick-off, was in far from ideal condition. Boggy, cut up areas all over made for extremely testing conditions for the players and Cobblers in particular struggled to adapt during a poor first-half showing.

Referee Robert Lewis did inspect the surface with both managers before kick-off but deemed it safe enough to play on.

"There's no excuse, both teams have played on it, but just looking at the pitch now, it's the worst pitch I've seen in professional football by far,” said McGowan, who has nearly 300 career appearances to his name.

"That's not to say it was an excuse, Salford have played on it as well, but it's worse than you can imagine when you're actually on it. Your feet were going from underneath you, but away from that, we know we need to be better in certain moments and at key times in the game.

"I actually spoke Watto (Ryan Watson), who I know well, and he said they haven't even been on their pitch for a few weeks, which surprised me. I wasn’t sure of Salford’s fixtures but looking at the pitch, I would have thought they had played three games in the space of seven days on it or something.

"Two teams played on it, there's no excuse from my end, but it doesn't help the flow of the game.”

Manager Jon Brady felt the pitch played a part in his side’s first-half struggles, saying: "We asked for more energy at half-time but you don't know from a player's perspective, they are the ones out there and it was difficult to trust the surface.

"But both teams have to play on it and once we started to trust the surface and move the ball quicker, we were so much better.”