Hey Chelsea I was thinking about the quality of fields of some of the lower tier teams that fight their way into the premier leagues. Has anyone ever made it up into the first flight leagues with a subpar pitch or tiny stadium?
In 2001, Fulham were promoted to the Premier League, where they have remained continuously since; at the time of their promotion, their Craven Cottage home ground still had terraces, which violated Premier League rules (all-seaters are, and I think always have been, mandatory at that level since the EPL was formed in 1992), so for a season or two, while Craven Cottage was being re-built to Premiership specs, they had to play their home matches at Loftus Road.
I am not aware of any Premier League ground being deemed subpar upon a club's promotion, although quality can vary among the top-flight grounds - for example, Chelsea's pitch quality is OK if not spectacular (not as wonky as FedEx Field turf, but Nationals Park it definitely isn't). In the lower leagues though, before straight promotion/relegation was established between the Football League's lowest tier (currently called League Two) and the Conference (nowadays it's two up, two down), there were cases of Conference teams being rejected for promotion because of various ground issues - Stevenage, for instance, should have gone up in 1995 but the League turned them down on ground issues (they finally made it up in 2011). I sometimes think those 'ground issues' had more to do with the existing clubs not wanting to invite some interloper into their tree-house.