The Portman Road - almost ready to rumble!


occasions. The next part of the build tends to be a 10-15 metre stretch of Supa-Trac along the front of the stage. This allows the stage construction team to have a storage area for some of the heavy steel


and stillages during the build. This area is likely to face the greatest pressures during the show because of the crowds desire to get as near to the stage as possible. On an increasing number of installations we would,


over the next day or so, continue the Supa-Trac build out across the pitch until complete. Timing wise it can be done in less than 6 hours and extracted in the same amount of time. The other options are that after the 15m mark we continue the installation in Rola-Trac a world wide proven system in dealing with pedestrian access. The install and extraction times are similar to Supa-Trac making our operational timings as competitive as they get.


groundsman’s


viewpoint Lee Jackson, Head Groundsman, City of Manchester Stadium


In initial meetings with the promoters, their preference was to cover the pitch with Terraplas, however this was not my choice. The year before I trialled Terraplas, Rola-T


flooring. The Terraplas got Fusarium first and the Rola Trac last, so it was obvious why I wanted it.


After many conversations with


the promoters they saw my point of view and the fact that it worked for us last year also swayed them. Preparation for the concert


started three days before the flooring was due to go down by applying Scotts Heritage fungicide. The sward was still very thin from the renovation work, and fusarium was the last thing we wanted with the pitch about to be covered. Our main concern for this


concert compared to last year’s was that the aluminium trackway was going across the six yard box compared to behind the goal line. Despite this, the production crew worked into the schedule that, once the stage set up was complete, the aluminium would be removed and replaced with Supatrac to give the grass a break from the heavy duty flooring that was squashing it down and depriving it of air and light. Another plus to the system was


that the fork lifts used in the set up could go anywhere on the pitch without putting their weight on one particular area. The concerts were held on two


nights, with U2 playing to 110,000 fans, almost half of them being on the pitch. The pitch could not, in my


opinion, have coped any better; new grass was evident, existing grass had thickened up and the fact the weather went well for us was also a big bonus. After the concerts, the site was


completely cleared within two days, allowing us time to get the pitch cleaned up with the Koro before the Oasis set up a week later. Overall the flooring was outstanding.


18 www.pitchcare.com/re Trac and Prima


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