To advertise in this section contact Classifieds
Peter Britton on 01747 855335 email:
peter@pitchcare.com
SPORTS TURF CONTRACTORS SPORTSTURF
D CRANE EST. 1984
CONSTRUCTION Golf Courses and Sports Fields
Sand Slitting, Gravel Banding, Piped Drainage DRAINAGE Koro Top Dressing, Overseeding, Sand Spreading Verti Draining, Scarifying, Hollow Coring,
For further details & consultation contact 07860 458822 or 07921 290985
Tel: 01772 780545
danvicturfcare@btconnect.com
Mobile: 07768 122577
Natural and synthetic pitch construction
Sports Turf
Contracting Ltd Call us now for the best pitch renovation prices in 2008!
07980 604430 Free site visit and free advice from qualified agronomist
Tel: 01256 880488 Email:
info@kestrelcontractors.co.uk
Get more for your money WITH
www.kestrelcontractors.co.uk
Sportsfield Construction Drainage Schemes Renovations & Improvements Cricket Specialists
Tel: 01529 455757 Fax: 01529 455775 e-mail:
steve@stevenpask.co.uk
SPORTS TURF RENOVATION & CONSTRUCTION EXPERT ADVICE & AGRONOMY SERVICES
FINE TURF MAINTENANCE WORK SPECIALIST EQUIPMENT HIRE TEL: 01952 511000
www.oakleysgroundcare.com E.mail
phil@oakleysgroundcare.co.uk
www.stevenpask.co.uk
DRAINING 25 years experience in sports turf aeration
WORTH
A. SMITH GRASS SERVICES A Healthy Solution to the Perfect Surface
TEL: 01473 652982 MOB: 07759 542773
GWAZAE DEEP GROUND PROBE AERATION KORO FIELD TOP MAKER • SCARIFYING VERTI-DRAINING • HOLLOW CORING SEEDING • TOP DRESSING
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Email:
adrian@grassservice.com Website:
www.grassservice.com VIBRA-TINE SAND MASTER
Overseeding - Sanding Top Dressing Hollow Coring
Blec Groundbreaker
Tel/Fax 01476 550266 Mobile: 07855 431119/20
email:
bloodworth@onetel.com www.worth-d
draining.com www.pitchcare.com Verti draining Fungicide, Pesticide, Herbicide
RENOVATION SPRAYING
SCONSTRUCTION DRAINAGE
Sand Slitting, Gravel Banding V RENOVATION
erti Draining, Hollow Coring, Scarifying, Koro Field Topmaker, Topdressing, Overseeding, Sand Spreading
From humble beginnings more than forty years ago, MJ Abbotts has become one of the leading sportsturf contractors in the UK. With its roots in agriculture, and a team of just five, how did the Wiltshire-based company evolve? Pitchcare talks to Contracts Director Nigel Wyatt
N
igel has played an integral part in the growth of MJ Abbott. This year he will be celebrating his 30th year with the company, beginning as a trainee to Mike Abbott at the tender age of sixteen. “There have been many
milestones in the company’s history where decisions have been taken which have shaped our future” said Nigel. “In the early days, our business was centred around agricultural drainage and borehole work within the locality. We’ve now drilled and maintain more than 400 boreholes making water engineering and abstraction a key area of our business.” “In 1977 we moved from our
East Farm site to a 5-acre plot in Dinton, just outside Salisbury. We embarked on the expansion of the existing premises to accommodate purpose-built workshops, offices and stores for equipment and materials. Gaining in workshop space and having talented staff led us to innovate and we began to build our own trenchers to enable us to work on sites where we encountered rock and waste materials. We built them entirely from scratch and currently have six in service. They were originally built for work on sportsgrounds but are now used at a number of different locations.” The milestone which has helped define the profile of the company as it is today was engineered by exploring the various ways in which their expertise and machinery could be applied to sports turf and amenity land.
In the early 1980s, a request from Avon County Council to
assist with the drainage to one of its sports pitches led to the modification of trenching machines to work on turf. The company’s engineers fitted a basic soil-loading conveyor to an agricultural machine and it did the job perfectly.
Most of the early sports pitch
projects were carried out for local authorities, but word quickly spread and the company were subsequently awarded contracts to rebuild the pitch at the Recreation Ground for Bath Rugby Club, adding an irrigation system along with drainage works and completing other refurbishment projects on behalf of the local authority. Other projects included Swindon FC’s County Ground and Bristol City Football Club. Now Abbotts construct and install irrigation and drainage to sports pitches across the country. Around this period, Dave Thomas Architects suggested MJ Abbott tender for primary drainage works at Bowood Golf & Country Club in Wiltshire. The tender was successful and this relationship, along with Dave Young, Dave Thomas’s project Manager at the time, flourished leading to the generation of other work on golf courses where the Abbott’s team’s extensive knowledge of water engineering led to provision of the design, supply, installation and maintenance of irrigation systems. The following years saw them truly emerge into the sportsturf sector and begin to work further afield, retained as subcontractors with companies such as Brian D. Pierson Limited and Transcontinental Golf. Whilst working as
IN THE BEGINNING Company Profile -M
MJ Abbott
ports Fields and Golf Courses
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