Orange
laurels since the club gained promotion. He was busy organising and overseeing the end of season renovations, and enduring quite a bit of upheaval whilst a new, temporary stand was being built in readiness for the Premiership games, taking the capacity up from 12,000 to 17,000, still small by top flight standards.
His last game on the pitch was in late
May, leaving him little over seven weeks before the first competitive match, a Network Rail rugby cup final between Widnes Vikings and Batley Bulldogs on 18th July. The first home football match on the pitch was played against Hibernian on 8th August with the first Premiership game on 28th August against Fulham. Stan likes to undertake a lot of the work himself. Having been a farmer for
many years, he is very experienced in the use of tractors and implements. His aim is to reduce dependency on contract machinery and carry out essential maintenance and renovation work in-house. With this in mind, Stan has built up a healthy stock of equipment, purchased through Campey Turf Care Systems, and the club now own their own Koro Field Topmaker, Muratori power harrow, 1.8m Reist Aeraseeder, Charterhouse Verti-Drain, Raycam Sports Field Harrows, a New Holland TC27 tractor and a Landquip Sprayer to help renovate the pitches themselves. “We have saved a considerable sum by investing in our own equipment,” said Stan. “Not only does it give us the flexibility to control our own maintenance and renovation
programme, but we can get the work completed faster by having everything on site. We know the investment will be paid back within three to four years.” This year, Stan enlisted the help of contractor, Derek Crane, to help him carry out the work at both the training ground and stadium. Work began on the training ground on 17th May. Both the pitch and a small training area were koroed, power harrowed and topdressed with 150 tonne of sand before being oversown with Johnsons Premier grass seed. A new Rain Bird pop up watering system was also commissioned this year, giving better control over watering requirements. This consisted of a fully automated, thirty-two head system connected to the mains. There are twenty-four heads around the
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