Will the Oakland Roots ever play at Laney Field again? It’s a legitimate question after the team was forced once again to move another home game to a different stadium.
Wednesday morning the Roots posted on their social media accounts because of the length of time required to lay down their new turf field they had to move Saturday’s home game to Merritt College.
“While we are delighted to have finally played on our new field in front of our fans at Laney College and a national TV audience on August 4th, the process of installing and dismantling the field is very demanding and is currently not fast enough to meet the deadline we set in order not to disturb the college sports programs at Laney,” the statement read.
The team also said in a tweet they will be using their new turf field over the Merritt College soccer pitch.
The Roots had to cancel their original home opener on June 19 minutes before kick-off because the team’s original portable turf field, used when they were the third-division NISA, was deemed unplayable by league officials. That field is comprised of 2900 rectangular panels of field turf that are laid out and connected together to cover the existing track and football field at Laney Stadium.
The delay in laying the turf field does seem a problem and goes against previous reports that the field would take even less time to lay down compared to the the club’s original turf field.
According to the Chronicle’s Connor Letourneau, the team’s new turf field was supposed to take about four hours to install, fourteen hours less than the team’s old modular field.
I visited Laney on Thursday afternoon July 29 when the turf originally arrived at Laney. Twenty-four hours later I visited again and workers there were still assembling a lower level layer over the school’s football turf and had not even placed the turf field.
The Roots share the field with the Laney College football team and it now appears the process to put together and take apart the new turf in-between the Laney football team using the field could possibly impact even more home game this season.
The Roots will now be playing half of their scheduled home games away from Laney, either at Merritt College or at Las Positas College in Livermore.
Saturday’s game at Merritt College has also been rescheduled to a 2 pm start time.
Oakland’s next game is tonight at Las Positas college in Livermore where they take on the Sacramento Republic.
