Diverse seasons keep us... ON OUR TOES


By STEVE PATRICK, Grounds Manager, Blackburn Rovers FC


At the end of last season we started renovating the Ewood Park pitch; on the 15th May to be exact. This was earlier than normal because of the World Cup Finals. John Mallinson’s company Koro’d off the top 15mm of the surface in two passes, removing all of the grass.


They then spread 200 tons of 80/20 Mansfield MM35 rootzone evenly before power harrowing the top dressing into the existing root zone.


The pitch was graded and consolidated and a pre-seed (9:7:7) and base fertiliser (0:20:20) was added to the top few millimetres of the


prepared surface. Back in March we had


replaced both our goalmouths with fibre re- enforced turf from Inturf and we decided to retain this material to help keep some stability in these areas. Once ready, the whole pitch was seeded with 380kgs of Johnson’s Wembley Way mix. Typically, the day after seeding, we had rain that fell in all directions (60mm fell in 3.5 hours). It was a monsoon and, when it had finished, there was a large quantity of the seed washed down onto the track surrounding the pitch. Trevor Wilkin (our Head


Trevor Wilkin (left) with Steve Patrick


Groundsman) and I are well used to heavy rain in Blackburn; it rains so often up here that we have developed webbed feet! When the rain ceased we discussed the damage with John Mallinson and decided


against over seeding the whole area again, agreeing instead to oversow a 4 metre perimeter just inside the pitch area.


Germination was slow because of the cold air and soil temperatures but, by


On the 17th July temperatures of 43O


C were recorded in the stadium


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