Grass carpet around perimeter The City of Manchester Stadium
The stadium is very impressive with the Desso Grassmaster pitch looking exceptional. Not having a concert this year has helped enormously with pre- season preparation, allowing more time for the grass to establish. Renovation of the pitch has been
different to previous years; it was cleaned off with a spiral rake, topdressed with 80 tonnes of sand, vertidrained, fertilised and reseeded. This year money has been spent on acquiring more equipment and installing a synthetic deep pile rubber infill grass carpet around three sides of the pitch. Over 1,400 square metres was laid to provide warm up areas, linesman’s runs to reduce mowing times and provide a safe turning area for the mowers. Five additional lighting rigs have been
purchased along with a Kioti DK551C tractor to pull them off an on the pitch. Four new Allett Buffalo mowers have been acquired along with six Lawnflite pedestrian rotaries for cleaning up the pitch. A Toro Procore aerator, Toro Soil Reliever, Blec 2 metre seeder, two Dennis
cassette mowers and a 300 litre boom sprayer have also been added to the impressive list of machinery. A varied programme of aeration is now possible with the combination of the Procore and the Soil Reliever which are used on a weekly basis to keep the pitch open, free draining and reduce the build up of black layer.
The pitch is mown at 25mm using the Allett Buffalo mowers, with the staff now preferring the lighter weight Buffaloes for mowing, and using the Dennis' for verticutting and brushing. Natural grass practise goalkeeping
areas have been retained within the artificial grass area with the aim of stopping keepers from using the main goal areas. A full size portable goal can be positioned to one side of the pitch with the frames being firmly secured by neat locking chains that fit in the new artificial surface.
Lee Jackson and his staff also look after the Manchester Arena athletics stadium adjacent to the main stadium, keeping the grass surface in good condition for both football and athletics.
An expensive business!
EVERY year Deloitte publish a financial statement for the Premier League. It takes twelve months to gather all the information hence the 2007/08 season. It makes interesting reading.
The Premier League saw its revenues soar by 26% in the 2007/08 season to nearly £2bn ($3.15bn; 2.2bn euros), the report into football finances said. The revenues of top-flight English sides were
£1.93bn, up from £1.5bn a year earlier. Despite the downturn, 11 of the 20 top league clubs made an operating profit in 2007/08, from eight a year before. But Premier League salary costs topped £1bn
for the first time, and the clubs’ total net debt was £3.1bn. Two-thirds of the debt was carried by the big
four of Manchester United, Liverpool, Chelsea and Arsenal, but Dan Jones, the editor of Deloitte’s Annual Review of Football Finance, said those clubs all had business plans “that they feel make sense”. The strong revenue growth outstripped the
ever-upwards salary growth, which boomed by 23% to £1.2bn, the biggest annual increase in absolute terms recorded by the Premier League. “In season 2007/08 the big change was the
new broadcasting deal - most of the growth came from there,” said Mr Jones. The current three-year broadcasting deal - worth £1.7bn - began in August 2007.
“In the season that has just finished [2008/09] we think the growth is going to be a little bit lower, but it is going to get clubs up to that magical £2bn mark - which is a remarkable achievement, an average of £100m a club in the Premier League.” But he warned that the summer months
would reveal the extent to which fans and sponsors were willing to match their previous levels of demand, with clubs having to closely examine their marketing and pricing strategies. “This summer will have been critical for
football clubs, it will be very interesting to see how the season ticket renewals and the corporate hospitality renewals went,” he said. “I think that is why we are seeing a lot of clubs freezing season ticket prices, reducing prices. They are very sensitive to the fans and their corporate sponsors and the problems they are facing.” However, he said English football - at both Premier League and Football League level - was proving more resilient in the face of downturn than many other industries. Wages paid by top-flight English sides grew
by 23% from the previous season to £1.2bn. Sunderland saw its wage bill soar by 56%. Chelsea once again had the highest wage bill, totalling £172.1m
Premier League clubs increased commercial
revenues to £447m, up by 12%, whereas matchday revenues grew more modestly, by 3%, to £554m.
L-r: Craig Knight, Roy Rigby, Lee Jackson and Gary Conway
So, as money continues to be ‘no object’ at Manchester City, some may say it will be much easier for all concerned to achieve the highest levels. In truth, it will probably put more pressure on both the team and the groundstaff as people’s expectations rise. Roy and his team are very committed and you can see this in the standard of presentation at all three sites. It is certainly a far cry from my time at
Fratton Park in the early eighties when the first team were ‘shipped’ off to two naval pitches to train whilst I maintained the stadium pitch (with just one assistant!). Hopefully, the investment at Manchester City and, indeed, many other Premiership clubs, will make the groundsmen’s jobs more rewarding and fulfilling.
Manchester Arena However, despite revenue growth, improved
profitability has remained elusive. “For many owners, Premier League clubs represent ‘trophy assets’ with the potential to deliver a long term return but which, at best, break even annually, rather then a cash cow delivering an ongoing dividend,” said Mr Jones. Indeed, of the total net debt of £3.1bn in the Premier League, a total of £1.2bn was in non- interest bearing “soft loans” from club owners. Mr Jones also pointed out that, while
footballer’s wages often attracted headlines, the amount of cash the industry put into national coffers was often ignored. “One thing that does not draw much
attention in the midst of all these huge numbers around football is the tax side of things,” he said. “So, in 2007/08 season we think the overall tax payment to the government from professional football in England was about £860m. When the new top rate of tax comes in that will go up to £1bn.” As well as looking at the English Premier League the Deloitte report also studies Germany, France, Italy and Spain. Italy’s Serie A was the fastest growing league
in terms of revenue, thanks mainly to the change in clubs in the league, including the return of Juventus, in 2007/08. In joint second place after the Premier League, in terms of gross revenues, was Spain’s La Liga and Germany’s Bundesliga. Source: Deloitte and the BBC.
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