Take That! and Bon Jovi have left the building! Now it’s time to get back to football at The City of Manchester
Stadium. In Part II of his article, LEE JACKSON explains what was done to get the playing surface ready for the new Premiership season
THE build for the Take That concerts, in mid June, started nine days before the first show due to the size of the production itself, and only three days after the Bon Jovi stage had been removed! It was said that it was the largest scale concert this year, by any band!
One of the main reasons for the early start was the use of an eight ton arch on the front of the stage. This was to form part of the lighting and pyrotechnic display. The arch was brought in sections and built on the pitch, so you can imagine the amount of forklift activity on the pitch.
Once built and loaded with equipment,
the arch was lifted into place via two eighty ton cranes. Whilst it was a concern, with all this weight on the pitch, it was hard to gauge any damage as it had been covered by the lads from Rolatrac. The lads operating the machinery did a good job, under the watchful eye of both ourselves and the promoters, by alternating their routes around the front of stage; they have done it often enough here now to know what is expected of them. The shows, on the Saturday and
Sunday, were preceded by a full rehearsal on the Friday. Saturday’s show was a sell out of around 58,000, though only around 57,000(!) came on the Sunday - most of them women! Despite not being a fan of their music, I must say there won’t be many shows to beat this for a long time to come. My ears are still
ringing now from the screams of over 50,000 women when they came on stage. One concern I did have was the use of a water fountain, from the roof of the stage, for a fifteen minutes section of the show; this was a constant stream going through the stage and onto the flooring. We were told water was being used, but hadn’t realised on what scale, otherwise we would have had a drain put on the underside to run it off the pitch. It also didn’t help that on the Sunday show there was rain, which was heavier during the concert. After the concert, most of the stage was
removed overnight. The following morning, after the pitch was swept, we followed the Rolatrac staff as they removed the flooring at the south end moving towards the north. As they lifted the flooring we started to remove the Tildenet sheets; the amount of debris these caught was unbelievable. Once the pitch was cleared, we couldn't believe how bad it was. It had become very sticky where the main work areas were and also at the front of stage where the main area of people were in the golden circle. After we got over the shock, and with Mallinsons booked in for the following morning, we raked and brushed the pitch to stand up what little grass remained, and gave it a quick cut. Mallinsons arrived the next morning, armed with the Koro, but it soon became clear that the fraize mowing it was due to carry out was not going to do much
good. The decision was taken to Koro the pitch off completely as if it were a normal pitch without the Desso reinforcement. The initial pass, followed by myself re-raking the pitch and Roy Rigby, the clubs head groundsman, cleaning off with our Litamina, still left a little surface debris, so the pitch was cleaned off once more with the Koro using a brush attachment. Despite all this work, not all the organic material could be removed, but a good percentage was. The spoil removed had to be dumped in the car park, with an estimated 100 tonnes being removed from the pitch. The pitch was then top dressed with a
disc spreader using a compatible 70/30 rootzone mix, followed by us raking once more to re-expose the Desso fibres. The pitch was then verti-drained and seeded by Roy on the Saturday with the dimple seeder, and Mallinsons on the Sunday with the disc seeder, using 15 x 25kgs kg Barenbrug Bar7. The other area of concern was that around 250 square metres of Desso was pulled out. This was replaced in mid-August when the pitch is established. As the pitch was seeded on the Sunday, it was treated with 11 x 25kgs Scotts 8-12-8 pre seed fertiliser, 6 x 25kgs Scotts Step Hi-Mag, 10 x 20kgs Rigby Taylors Activate granules and 11 x 20 kgs 0-0-45 high phosphorus fertiliser. Yet again, Mallinsons staff did a great job for us and certainly put the hours in to get it finished as soon as possible. Fortunately, the weather was dry, right through the renovation period, which
TAKE THAT! again
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