“The biggest challenges are still to come - returning the tracks to the standard they were ten years previously”
an overgrown field from not having been played on for two years to hosting league cricket in just four days.
SO, now we come to week two. The Head Groundsman and myself sat on the now perfectly dry outfield in shorts and t- shirts wondering why the square was still underwater? Out came the core-sampler and ten minutes later we knew why. Around 1.5” of thatch, along with a lot of moss, meant that the water was just sitting in the surface like a giant sponge. We pulled out the scarifier and tiner and over the next few days, we managed to get enough holes into the square so that it actually started to drain. Also during this week we continued removing the grass from the outfield, the ground was now dry enough to put the cylinder mower to work helping us. Unfortunately, the mower only lasted another two days before it went bang - something sheared inside the engine and it was no more. But, by then, the hardest work was almost complete and, by the second match, we had only remnants of grass clippings on the outfield. Then came the hot weather. The
square went from soaking wet to rock hard within three or four days and the inevitable cracks appeared. You can see the size of some of the cracks compared to a cigarette in the photograph. We haven’t got any covers as yet to help protect the square from drying out quickly although I have been able to borrow the lie flat covers from the other ground.
Out of a fourteen track square we lost one due to our original guess work, in deciding where it was, and we lost another three to the cracking. That left us with ten tracks for the season. Normally that wouldn’t be a problem, but, with no renovation work and no preseason work, we were wondering if we’d made the right decision in taking this particular facility on. The tracks have slowly improved or, should I say, become more safe, though they will never be described as decent tracks this season. It is fair to say that they perform at least as good as some of the away tracks we’ve played on, though there are far too many ‘shooters’ for our liking. One way or another that thatch has got to be removed from the square at the end of the season.
This season, it is looking most likely that we’ll be doing some very aggressive scarifying with the Graden and removing as much of the thatch as we can. We had hoped to have some funds in place to Koro the square but this looks like it will have to wait. Even with the much-needed scarification we still don’t know, as yet, where the money is coming from to pay
52 for it!
The square, we found out after we had played one or two games, was marked with 4” diameter metal discs; none had been visible to us at the time. We enlisted the assistance of the Plymouth Metal Detecting Club and one of their members kindly offered to spend a few hours helping us to locate these magical metal discs. It took some time, but we did eventually find them and, other than having rotated the square by half a track, it turned out that those daisies were amazingly accurate. Of the two teams (3rds and 4ths) using the Mount Wise ground as their home ground one, the 3rds, are top of their league and the 4ths are third in their league. So I’d say we can’t have done too bad a job with everything so far.
THE biggest challenges are still to come though - returning the tracks to the standard that they were only ten years previously. But the biggest problem is to find the money to pay for the much needed work - a problem which I’d imagine almost every amateur club in the land faces.
As with many amateur clubs, equipment and materials are purchased on an ‘as and when we can be afforded’ basis. The vast majority of equipment is sourced third, or even fourth, hand. It doesn’t do the same job as the modern equipment but if you’re careful then you can still get equipment that will get you by.
All in all, I think I can safely say that, as a committee, we understand that, without the right equipment, the Groundstaff can’t produce the tracks that the players require. If the money is available then ground equipment has always been funded. We’ve never had any problems with getting the materials required for the end of season renovations, though whether some people understand why they must be done I really don’t know. The amount of games on the Mount
Helping hands come in all shapes and sizes
36” Atco -o
two days before it went bang!
only lasted another
“Equipment is purchased on an ‘as and when we can afford it’ basis - the vast majority being third, or even fourth, hand”
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