Winter Sports
of trials... Ben has five full time staff and two
apprentices. Matt Davies and Tim Walker are largely based at the stadium, whilst Nathan Scarff, brothers Andrew and James Cubitt and apprentices, Tom Grafen and Sam Smith, work at the training ground.
All the training pitches and the stadium pitch are soil based; in fact, Portman Road has hardly changed since the 1930s. “Alan spent fourteen years developing both sites and investing in equipment to do the job properly,” explains Ben. “The sheds are packed with equipment, not only to carry out the regular maintenance regimes, but also a full range of renovation equipment that includes fraise mowers, topdressers and seeders. There is so much equipment that there is not
nearly enough room for it in the sheds!” Ben spends the majority of his time at the training ground in nearby Playford Road, organising and planning work schedules. “I’m happy to leave the daily maintenance of the stadium pitch to Matt and Tim,” says Ben, “but I do oversee work is completed and arrange feeding and aeration programmes.” “The pitch is cut on a daily basis using our Ransomes Mastiffs and Matadors. We’ve been cutting at 24mm, although we are considering whether to raise it to around 27mm during the winter months to give the grass more chance to recover after matches. All the training pitches are maintained at 24mm though.” “We also brush and verticut on a
regular basis to keep the sward standing up and allow air circulation around the
plant.”
At the training ground, the team operate an ongoing rota system of renovations, with one or two pitches getting the full treatment of fraise mowing, topdressing (60-100 tonnes per pitch), vertidraining and overseeding, whilst the remaining pitches get scarified using the scarifying reel in the Koro Top Field Maker, top dressing (30 tonnes), Koro Dresser Recycler, hollow coring, breaking cores/cleaning, levelling and seeding.” “Aeration is our key operation,” says
Ben. “With all the pitches being soil based, it is imperative that we keep them as open as possible, so a regular deep aeration is carried out every three to four weeks. Deep aeration is either with a borrowed verti-drain or by using a local
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