Kanteerava stadium to host HASC's first home tie

The astro-turf laying work at the Bangalore Football Stadium has necessitated the shift of Aircraftmen’s first match on home turf to Sree Kanteerava stadium. The match will begin at 3.30 pm.

HASC’s second home match will be against defending champions Dempo on January 30 at the same venue.

“Due to the heavy monsoon in 2010, work at BFS got affected,” said AR Khaleel, president of Karnataka State Football Association.

“The work was originally scheduled to be completed by December 31, 2010 but with the City witnessing heavy rains, we’ve now pushed the deadline to January 31, 2011. I am hopeful all the work will be completed by then and fans can witness HASC in action on the new astro-turf in February.”

Iman Rana, director of the Rana Engineering Company India Private Limited, the firm entrusted with the task of laying the base for the astro-turf, sounded positive of completing the work by end of January. “The base work is currently going on well and should be done in the next 6-7 days. This includes setting up a drainage facility amongst other things.

“Delegates from FIFA will then visit the stadium -- expected on Jan 10 -- and give the green signal to Greenfields to lay the atsro-turf. The turf-laying process will take another 20 days and the stadium should then be ready to host matches,” he said.

If the turf-laying work at the BFS gets completed within the deadline, Aircraftmen could play their third home tie there on February 6 against ONGC.