W
hen Elton John came to play at Greenhouse Meadow, in front of 16,000
adoring fans at the 10,000 capacity venue, the pitch had to be covered to provide seating for the additional 6,000. A Trackway system was employed to completely cover the pitch, with the stage being erected behind the north end goalmouth. “With over 300 tonnes of stage and equipment, it was important to keep most of this weight off the main pitch,” said Head Groundsman, Richard Barnett, “especially as it’s a fibresand construction designed to be very free draining.” Richard explained that it took him, and his assistant, Andrew Muir, a couple of years to get to grips with managing a sand based pitch, compared to the soil based pitch they had been used to at the club’s old Gay Meadow ground. “Keeping the pitch watered, aerated and well fed are the prime drivers in maintaining a good sward. Rye grasses are very hungry and often require a steady feed throughout the growing season,” Richard said. “The timing of the concert was critical to the pitch’s recovery, and had to be worked around our end of season renovations. This year, we were able to begin renovations in late May. The plan was to do a part renovation prior to the concert on the 12th June, and complete it as soon as the concert paraphernalia had been removed from site.” For the team of three, which also includes assistant groundsman (and winner of Pitchcare’s Fantasy Football League), Dominic Murray, the experience of putting on a concert for the first time has been very rewarding, if also a little fraught. With the stadium being just a ten minute drive from the Pitchcare offices, I popped over to get a first-hand account of how they had coped with the concert and, more importantly, see the condition of the pitch after the event.
I was met at the ground by
Richard, who was busy vertidraining the pitch, and Andrew, who talked about their worries ahead of the event and how, with careful planning and sound advice from various quarters, it turned out to be a great success all round.
“There was a lot of anxiety amongst the groundstaff when the concert was announced. The biggest issue, in our eyes, was the date; right in the middle of the pitch renovation period. Also, thoughts of the Don Valley Stadium, following the U2 concert a couple of years ago, when half of the pitch failed to recover in time for the start of the season, kept cropping up in our conversations.” “Back in February, our Operations Director, Ian Bebbington, arranged for us to meet Wolfie from Marshall Arts. He was the man in charge of the logistical set up for the concert, and explained everything that would happen before, during and after the event in great detail. He also gave Richie his counterpart’s number at Ipswich, where Wolfie had done two back to back concerts the previous season at Portman Road, under the gaze of the redoubtable Alan Ferguson.” “Richie spoke with Alan for over an hour, and he gave us lots of good advice and told us not to worry. Coupled with Wolfie’s explanation of how things would go, it was fair to say we were a lot happier with the situation.” “Taking everything on board, we set about devising a pitch renovation plan around the end of season fixtures, even taking into account the possibility of a playoff game. These plans were slightly compromised by the late inclusion of the Shropshire Senior Cup Final fixture but, following this game, we reseeded the goal areas and assistant referee runs and gave them a topdressing of sand.” “On Monday 16th May, we
reseeded and topdressed the goal areas again and, on the last day of that month, sprayed the whole pitch with Dedicate. This was to stop the grass getting any disease whilst it was sweating under the Trackway covers - the ideal conditions for disease to set in.”
“On Thursday 2nd June, the pitch was cut to 20mm and, the following day, verticut to ground level. On Monday 6th June the pitch was again cut to 20mm and then overseeded with eight bags of Barenburg Bar 7 in three directions.” “The following day,
preparations for the concert began in earnest. It was a case of watching the media company come in and construct the stage using huge lorry mounted cranes. We just had to let them
Richard Barnett (left) and Andrew Muir
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