Winter Sports
scored the last goal. After a six month holiday, Jonathan
returned to groundsmanship, becoming head groundsman at Molineux, taking over from Dave Saltman, who had left to pursue some odd new business venture called
Pitchcare.com! During his time at Wolves, he won the coveted title of First Division Groundsman of the Year 2002/2003, and continues to be mentioned in dispatches. At the time, he was employed by Sportsturf Maintenance, who had the contracts for several clubs, and this led to Jonathan overseeing work at two other clubs - Aston Villa and, for one year, Tranmere Rovers. In 2006, American entrepreneur Randy
Lerner, who already owned the Cleveland Browns American football team, bought Aston Villa, and asked Jonathan to take up a full time post at the club, to be responsible for transforming the pitch facilities at both the stadium and training ground at Bodymoor Heath. Lerner’s multi-million pound
investment in training facilities, as well as a new pitch for Villa Park, heralded a host of new playing surfaces. Bodymoor Heath’s reported £20 million revamp included new £5 million- plus floodlit facilities and three full-size first team practice pitches - one a replica of Villa Park’s Desso surface, including its camber, undersoil heating and irrigation - two Fibresand pitches and a full size 3G synthetic pitch. The original training areas now accommodate academy teams on seven full size pitches laid on a 70/30 sand/soil substrate.
A huge fleet of maintenance machinery, equipment and vehicles, and a fourteen strong grounds support team, were also added.
In 2006, Jonathan was able to
reconstruct the stadium pitch, replacing the old Desso system installed back in 1996, with a brand new, up-to-date Desso system. The original pitch was one of the first of this specification to be used in the UK, and the rootzone used was of very
fine particle size, which, unfortunately, compacted very readily. “There wasn’t anything wrong with the old pitch in terms of wear and tear,” says Jonathan, “but the severe soil compaction meant that replacement was the only option. The new version uses a coarse, virtually pure, sand rootzone and required an intensive trace element package application every four weeks for the first two years to build up nutrient values in the inert rootzone material as supplied.”
Jonathan is a big fan of the Desso system, but is keen to stress that good maintenance practices are essential to get the best out it. “End of season renovation begins with stripping out all of the natural grass species. This generally requires approximately eight passes to avoid disturbing and damaging the precious Desso synthetic fibres, which are intentionally left in place. We bring in contractors to do this specialist work, as they have the specifically designed machinery. We don’t want to use anything
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