“The square went from soaking wet to rock hard within three or four days and the inevitable cracks appeared”
covered in five inches of grass. The first order of play was to get that grass cut and to try and work out where the square was supposed to be! The council cut the outfield for us - unfortunately not removing the cuttings, but since they weren’t charging us we couldn’t complain too much. We cut a rough rectangle down with a rotary mower where we thought the square might be. The next day we were amazed to come back to the ground and find an obvious rectangle of daisies showing. That was where we decided
the square was, and it proved to be pretty accurate. One extra problem also reared its head at this point. The MOD had done some testing for arsenic at the ground and had dug nine holes (4ft square) at various points around the field. Fortunately, it didn’t look
like they were on the actual square. So, we had a few tonnes of topsoil delivered and these holes were filled, seeded and rolled to make them safe; some have now grown over, some haven’t. Due to the position of some of these holes one track,
almost in the centre of the square, is currently only suitable for under 11 and 13’s cricket. The square was cut down to
a reasonable level, with our old 36” Atco, and a track roughly cut. We tried rolling the track, but the roller almost sank, I’ve never seen a square so wet. With some enthusiastic help, six hand rakes and numerous men/women hours, we managed to clear enough of the grass from the outfield to make the ground just about playable, sufficient anyway for the first match, a
4th team game. Come Friday night, the track was still far too wet to put a roller on, so the Head Groundsman took the decision to cut another track in the morning. Saturday morning arrived, and a new track was cut, but not too short; there was lots of grass left on it so that it would be reasonably safe. All our fingers were crossed. The track apparently played awful, but that was only to be expected as, with the early spring weather, every other track in the county was wet too.
Ultimately, we had taken
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