Rush gives plastic backing

Former Liverpool and Wales goals machine Ian Rush has backed Dunfermline Athletic's new plastic pitch despite concerns by the club's own players.

Rush was in the Fife town on Thursday to represent Uefa, who have given the Scottish Premier League club a special grant to instal the new surface as an experiment at East End Park.

The Welshman admitted: "I played on plastic pitches at QPR and Luton and they did not get a true bounce.

"But this is a lovely surface and to satisfy Uefa it has to be something special."

Saturday's league opener against Celtic will be the last on the present grass surface.

If you ask the players what they prefer, grass is what they would all say Dunfermline captain Scott Thomson

It will be dug-up thereafter, but Dunfermline's players - and manager Jimmy Calderwood - are not as convinced as Rush about what they will be playing on for the rest of the season.

Thomson said: "We don't want it, but Dunfermline Athletic is going to be around a lot longer than we are.

"If they feel that's the way they have got to go then we will have to go along with it.

"The gaffer said it was the best he had seen, so we will just have to see.

"But I'm sure, if you ask the players what they prefer, grass is what they would all say.

"I played on plastic pitches when I was at Aberdeen and I remember feeling stiffer afterwards than when I was training on the grass. Maybe I'm just getting older."