Summer Sports - Tennis
A twenty year
Neil Backes is one of a handful of volunteer groundsmen looking after the recreation ground facilities in the Shropshire village of Norton in Hales.
Here, he talks about how two rather tired and worn out grass tennis courts received a thorough renovation ready for the 2012 season
moved to Norton in Hales when I was nine years old, and can remember back over the last forty- odd years of the two grass tennis courts being used for periods and then, eventually, falling into dereliction. Going back even further, there have certainly been grass tennis courts here for at least eighty years, as we have trophies at the club dating back to 1933/34. The two tennis courts are part of the local recreation ground which consists of a cricket table and outfield, a bowls green and a children’s playground. The recreation ground is self managed by the three sports clubs, with volunteers, like myself, looking after the specific grounds work, whilst employing the services of a local contractor to keep the surrounds of the area under control. So it was, about twenty-three years ago, that a group of locals, keen to play tennis in the village, decided to recommission the overgrown and derelict tennis courts. We raised some money and replaced the surrounding fencing, whilst cutting down the undergrowth and then digging over and re-grading the courts. They were then reseeded and fertilised. The view was that, if we had tennis courts, we could attract some new members, raise more funds and, after two or three years, afford to have them resurfaced with either tarmacadam or similar hard surface for all year round play. Well, we did attract new members and had a reasonable amount of money saved after this period. However, when we put the idea to the members, there
makeover... I
was no appetite to move away from natural grass. Despite the fact that members had to play elsewhere in the winter, they loved playing on grass during the summer months. So, that's where we've been at for the last twenty years, maintaining these two grass courts with fairly limited funds and limited knowledge. For a long time, the two courts were simply mown and marked out during the season. They received little or no end of season care, until about eight years ago, when some limited aeration was introduced into the schedule. The courts were in decline and every season the bounce became lower and the levels more uneven as the thatch built up. The lack of end of season renovations meant the playing surface just got bumpier too, resulting in balls going off at all angles when they hit the ground.
It was decided that the poor quality of play on the courts would contribute to the club starting to lose some of its fifty strong membership, so plans were put in place to seek advice on the health of the playing surfaces. We called in a local agronomist, who took a few samples out and showed us the build up of thatch within the turf. The thatch was over 25mm thick and we were told that scarifying was no longer an option to bring the courts back. Given the poor general levels, it was recommended that we remove the existing vegetation and cultivate the soils underneath to alleviate the compaction. The samples of soil were analysed by the
Tennis courts before work commenced 54 PC JUNE/JULY 2012
Seed germinating ...
... and greening up nicely
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