It’s every groundsman’s nightmare: kick-off imminent, and the pitch is unplayable because sopping wet conditions have caused the lines on the pitch to fade.
The paint won’t go down on the flooded pitch, so where do you source an alternative white line? Go and speak to the dodgy fella in a trenchcoat outside the stadium? Attempt to remove them from Grandmaster Flash’s mind? Something else unspeakable?
That was the problem facing Oliveirense as they attempted to get their Portuguese second-tier clash with Felgueiras to go ahead in flooded conditions in northern Portugal on Sunday afternoon.
Whole milk used to draw goal line to rescue Oliveirense v Felgueiras
With the goal line looking very patchy on an extremely wet and muddy pitch, Sport TV cameras clocked the ground staff emptying cartons of milk into the line marker.
Record.pt clarified that far from being a desperate last-second substitution for missing paint, the move was actually a smart bit of thinking.
Quando o leite salva o dia 😅#sporttvportugal #LIGAnasporttv #ligaportugalmeusuper #oliveirense #felgueiras pic.twitter.com/cVmROkLm6uJanuary 5, 2025
Paint was in fact available, but they opted to use whole milk regardless because it is not water soluble due to its fat and lactose content, thus causing it to congeal into a gummy state that would remain visible throughout the game. And now we know what we’re doing in the back garden this evening.
The line was then re-drawn using the milk, allowing the game to proceed, albeit with a 15 minute delay to the scheduled kick-off time.
Oliveirense may wish they hadn’t bothered in the end, though: they went behind in the very first minute and ended up on the receiving end of a three-goal defeat.
That leaves the club rooted to the bottom of the second-tier table, four points away from Porto B, while Felgueiras are up in 13th as part of a congested mid-table pack.
We look forward to seeing the same solution deployed at Cowdenbeath, Uddersfield and Newcattle.
