Wycombe Wanderers' pitch at Adams Park was harder than frozen ground last season according to Andrew Howard

Gareth Ainsworth’s side lost only twice on their travels in League Two last season where as they ended up on the losing side six times in front of their own fans.

The Blues boss criticised the surface at times during the campaign as he felt it was hindering his side from playing the attacking, expansive style of football that he wants Wycombe to play.

The Desso pitch, which has been down at Adams Park since 2000, is five years over its life and was in desperate need of work.

Howard explained: “We took just under 200 tonnes of rubbish off the pitch. In doing so we stripped out the pitch, took about four inches off the top and basically we have the hardest pitch known to man.

“You calibrate a pitch on its bounce and our pitch was calibrated at 130 – frozen ground is 100. So if ever you’ve wondered why they never seem to get the ball down it’s because the ball never came down.

“The problem for us is that our away performance was much better than our home performance. Our home performance wasn’t bad, our away performance, I think you’ll find, was one of the best in the league.

“It’s not just about having a great squad, it’s about having a really good environment to play football in.”

The chairman said the much needed maintenance work was the only alternative as installing a new Desso pitch would have cost between £800,000 and £1.4m, and even a standard pitch totalling £300,000.

Wanderers voted in favour of a motion to re-introduce plastic pitches to the Football League but found themselves in the minority as the vote went against bringing artificial pitches back into professional football for the first time since 1995.

Howard added that the club were “praying for an artificial pitch” as it would be cheaper to maintain, available to lease out as many times as they wanted through the year and also that it was the preferred choice of the players.