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ROLLERS
Artificial needs special attention
St Christopher’s School, Wrexham gets the Sweepfast treatment, courtesy of an 18 stone Welshman and a few choice words!
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It was in Autumn last year that we received an enquiry from Chris Pittaway at St Christopher’s School in Wrexham. He had been recommended to contact us as a possible solution to a problem the school faced - an unplayable artificial pitch and no budget to replace it. Chris told me how the school had moved to the premises six or so years previously and that, during most of that time, the pitch had been out of action due to the amount of mud on the surface. In fact, it had only been used when bone dry after the groundsman had been sent in to cut the grass and weeds growing through the surface!
As the school teaches children with special needs, and my daughter has a learning disability, I am very aware of the budgetary restrictions that these schools have, so I was very keen to help out if at all possible.
SPRAYERS
Over the past few years we have tackled plenty of artificial surfaces that have been in appalling conditions. As our processes and machinery have developed, so has my confidence that, as long as the carpet was in reasonable condition, we would be able to refurbish it.
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So, on a wet October day I arrived to look at what surely must have been the worst artificial pitch in existence. The P.E teacher who showed me to the pitch advised me not to walk on it as it was like a skating rink. He rapidly disappeared leaving me slipping and sliding across the surface as I began my inspection.
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Once I had scraped some mud off the surface I found that the ‘Playrite’ carpet was actually in reasonable condition with plenty of pile left, even on the penalty spots. There were several blown seams, one large failed repair that needed attention and several smaller ones.
The pitch had a natural fall towards the adjacent grass sports field resulting in several inches of mud accumulating against the kick boards on this side of the pitch. It was here that the worst of the weeds were growing; couch grass, docks and thistles amongst others. This was, without doubt, the worst pitch I have seen by a long way. Ten minutes later after a cloud burst it looked like a boating lake with only the tops of the docks and thistles showing along the low side. After checking the drainage through the base to make sure that the problems were contained in the carpet I set off for home.
Chris duly received a quote for the renovation and, after checking references we had provided and discussed how we could take payment to fit their budget, a date was agreed for the work to commence - the week of the February half term, weather permitting.
After warning our staff that this was the worst pitch they would encounter they set off for Wrexham early one bitterly cold morning. Scott, our operations manager and rather large Welshman not known for his bedside manner, arrived on site with his crew and, within minutes, was turning the airwaves blue as he realised that this really was a bad one, and wanted to tell us in no uncertain terms!
The thought of 18 stones of red faced Welshman pacing the pitch at St Christopher’s, in the freezing cold and wet, probably plotting his revenge for sending him there, made me think it might be prudent to arrange visits to the other end of the country for the next few days!
After scraping the mud and the weeds away, with one of our mini loaders, the Hydrofast machinery was set up and the cleaning process began. Work progressed
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