The Ormidale Park in Brodick could flood beyond repair unless the group that looks after it can raise thousands of pounds to fix it.
The warning has come from Arran Sports Association, which says it needs an initial £8,000 to save the pitch.
At present, the pitch easily floods and the drainage system, which runs across the main road to Cloy Burn, needs to be updated – but at a price.
Arran Sports Association secretary Andy Ingham said: ‘The pitch could cope with the usual surface water but there is also water draining down off the Astroturf pitch and we’re finding that, in certain conditions, the main drain adjacent to Ormidale Road is overflowing.
‘Because the water lies on the pitch for days, there is a stench and the grass is rotting.’
Mr Ingham said the group needs an estimated £8,000 to update the main drainage system.
He added: ‘Until we do that, until we know the water on the park will drain away, there is no point spending money on the pitch.’
But that is precisely what the association is having to do as the pitch is regularly used, not least by Arran Rugby Club, which is competing in a league this season.
The pitch has been spiked and verti-drained (a system by which the soil underneath the flooded pitch is shattered) but to little effect and every verti-drain costs the group £200.
Mr Ingham added: ‘We’ve not got a bottomless pocket and if we don’t get the money we will lose the pitch.
‘If anyone is willing to offer help, we are willing to accept it.’
Arran Sports Association member Judy Dreycott said: ‘It is a lot of money but we have to raise it or else we change its use from rugby to water polo.
‘My son plays rugby on the pitch and you expect his shirt to get wet but it gets very smelly too because of the water lying on the pitch for so long.’
Ms Dreycott said North Ayrshire Council charge the group £1,800 to cut the grass but has offered the group no financial assistance.
Ms Dreycott said: ‘We have a really hard-working group, a really good team.
‘We’ve all had a paint brush in out hand or cleaned the toilets when it needed done.
‘I think that since our group took over 18 months ago we’ve helped to turn it around.
North Ayrshire Council was unavailable for comment.
