ONE solution to the Rodney Parade pitch problem seemingly supported by many is for Newport County AFC to return to playing at Spytty Park but in my view that would be a big backwards step.

Having covered County’s Conference South title-winning season in 2009-2010 I, like many fans, have some great memories of the Exiles’ time at Newport Stadium.

But Spytty wasn’t fit for the Football League when County moved to Rodney Parade in 2012 and it would take a significant financial investment to bring it up to standard four and a half years on.

The stadium can accommodate around 3,200 fans and English Football League rules demand a capacity of 5,000, while the National League requirement is 4,000.

One well-informed source estimates that the club would need to invest at least £200,000 and probably closer to £300,000 to bring the old ground up to an acceptable standard.

That includes spending a minimum of £50,000 to fix the problems with the old shed stand and another £50,000 on the stand behind the goal at the SDR end.

County would also need to upgrade the changing room facilities and carry out work to ensure that the boardroom had direct access to the main stand.

And anyone who has seen the state of the pitch at Spytty in recent weeks will know that the surface is no better than that at Rodney Parade.

County currently train at the ground and play reserve fixtures there and manager Graham Westley was highly critical of the state of the pitch and the club’s training arrangements during the AGM last week.

“We’ve got a training ground that in theory and at first sight appears to have everything,” Westley told Supporters Trust members and shareholders.

“We’ve got a velodrome with five-a-side courts inside it, an Astroturf, Dragon Park sitting next to it, we’ve got the athletics stadium, the running track, but the most important thing to me and to a footballer is the pitch that we’re going to train on.

“The pitch we train on is almost unplayable. The ball won’t run on it or roll to a degree that gives a player any confidence.

“And the one thing you want to do with a player on the training ground is give them confidence.

“You don’t want to take a player onto the training ground and the ball’s bouncing off his shin and his knee – it’s not healthy for that to happen.

“So we’ve got a training facility which is a struggle and if we want to we want to go off of the grass and onto the Astroturf we can’t.

“In theory the club’s got a deal where if we got the actual access to the facilities that the club has organised it would be fine.

“But when we ring up and say we need the Astroturf because the pitch is unplayable [they say] ‘oh sorry, the pitch is booked.

“[I then say] ‘Can we go into the five-a-side pitches then’ [and they reply] ‘oh sorry, they’re booked’ “On the face of it we’ve got great facilities; in reality we can’t use them.”

Those words have angered bosses at Newport Live, the social enterprise and registered charitable trust that runs the Newport International Sports Village.

And that’s another factor that could well make a return to Spytty, already home to Newport City FC and Newport Harriers Athletics Club, more complicated than many people assume.

But, from a personal point of view, I can’t see why anyone would want to go back to watching the Exiles at Spytty.

The poor transport links make it difficult for many supporters to get to and once you are there the athletics track means the action is too far away and pitch is open to the elements at both ends.

Going back to Spytty would be tantamount to an admission that the club wants to give up on the Football League and go back to being a relative big fish in the shallow waters of the non-league game.