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I have always wanted to work in football and now I have this appointment I am looking forward to this opportunity with relish, especially as there are some interesting challenges ahead of me. Not only have I got to manage and maintain the existing stadium pitch, I am also involved in overseeing the construction of the new stadium pitch currently being finished by White Horse Contractors.
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The impressive new stadium is housed on surplus land at Nailsworth Primary School, about 200 yards from the current ground. The existing ground has been sold off for building new housing. The new stadium is scheduled
to be ready for the start of the 2006-7 season. Prior to coming to this club I had been involved for around 8 years working in both horticulture and sports ground management. I used to work for a local contractor looking after school pitches and parks open spaces. Within that remit I was in charge of football, cricket and fine turf (bowling green) facilities. I love this work and have so far
furthered my knowledge with NVQ level 3, both in sports turf and horticulture at Hartpury College. When I got to Forest Green
Rovers, I inherited some of the usual problems such as black layer, a soil pan and a surface that was predominantly Poa annua. In previous seasons these had caused a number of problems with the pitch, particularly the fact that the surface was quickly prone to waterlogging after rain and getting too dry and hard in the summer. Root growth was less than 30mm which, in itself, caused many problems. My initial aims were to rectify these problems by
FOOTBALL
In June 2005 Matthew Rainey was appointed the new Head Groundsman at Nationwide Conference side Forest Green Rovers FC to oversee the maintenance and management of their ground.
increasing the frequency of cultural practices, in particular aeration.
I also did more scarifying,
overseeding and arranged a balanced feeding programme with the help of Rigby Taylor. I am not going to resolve the Poa problems in one season, but I can improve its management to help me get through the fixture list. Understandably with the new stadium being built, the club had spent only a marginal sum of money on the end of season renovations, so much of the remedial work since has had to be carried out by myself. I have been trying to break up the pan with some deeper and more frequent varying aeration works. Spiking is done weekly (when conditions allow) to different depths, in fact the benefits are beginning to show, aeration holes now tend to stay open for longer than a week. The pan is about 50mm below the surface and it is encouraging to see the roots getting down to this sort of depth now. When we have rain, the pitch does drain far quicker than it did only a few months ago. With three teams (1st team,
Women’s team and a County team) using the pitch there is plenty of work generated for me. To date we have had more than 25 games on the pitch and some training sessions and by the time this season finishes we will probably have held over 70 fixtures. This figure will be many more fixtures than the club was able to host previously. I do not have any other staff to
work with me, but during busy spells I can call upon some local Greenkeepers for help.
The Chairman of the club is very supportive and will always listen in
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