The overnighter!
Laurence Gale pops into Headingley for a natter
WHEN I’m in Leeds I usually stay at the Headingley Lodge, which overlooks Yorkshire Cricket Club’s Headingley Carnegie ground and, whenever possible, I catch up on the latest news with the two local Head Groundsmen,
the
ground. Andy was busy
dragmatting the outfield whilst
Andy Fogerty at the cricket club and Jason Booth at the rugby ground. It was
6.00pm when I arrived and it was little surprise to find Andy and
his team still working. They were busy finishing off their end of season renovations.
It was a useful opportunity to take some photos of these works at a top-flight cricket
another staff member was working on the square with a tractor mounted Sisis scarifier, cleaning off the surface debris to create a bed for the new seed.
Mick Taylor from Premier Pitches was spreading the last few tonnes of sand. Premier had been called in to fraise mow the square and undertake the renovation work on the new outfield. This involved scarifying down to 10mm, hollow coring, deep aeration using the Gwaze, topdressing with 120 tonnes of sand, vertidraining the whole outfield and oversowing with a dwarf rye grass seed mixture.
Mick was due to be back on the tractor
following morning to vertidrain the
outfield, so Andy was in the
process of
marking the position of the sprinkler heads and the line of water pipes to prevent any damage from the operations.
I left them to it - didn’t want to interrupt them (as if - Ed).
At 8.30am the next day I made a fleeting visit to see Jason and Keil, his assistant, who were preparing for the semi-final Super League match against Catalans. They had already cut the pitch and there was only the marking out to do.
My timing couldn’t have been better. It was breakfast time - they asked me to join them and catch up on the gossip. Sometimes, it can be tough being out on the road!
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