Winter Sports
Welcome to Derby County
What’s in the Derby County shed?
Toro Reelmaster 5510 five unit cylinder mower
Toro Reelmaster 5400 five unit cylinder mower
Allett Buffalo cylinder mower Kubota STV 40 tractor Tym tractor with front loader Toro Procore 574 JCB utility vehicle
Kilworth tractor mounted fertiliser spreader
Ryetec tractor mounted scarifier Dakota tractor mounted topdresser Greentech tractor mounted roller Sisis Quadraplay brush Huxley brush BLEC Mulitiseeder
County’s all weather training pitch
tough winter period of low light levels. The west wing at Portman Road struggles when the sun doesn’t manage to get above the stands. Our south stand has a perspex roof with the belief that it will allow light to penetrate to the pitch. It has just had its first clean in twelve years, so I will be observing to see the benefits! Our next stop was Derby County, a club I felt were in a similar situation to Ipswich, after being relegated from the Premiership and spending some years back in the Championship. I was interested to see that Derby have the same issues with the amount of academy football and excessive use on the floodlit areas in the evenings. We arrived at the training ground at 9.30am to be met by the club’s Head Groundsman, Andy Croft, and his assistant Paul Sheppard who, again, were waiting for the early morning frost to clear, ready for the first team training sessions to begin under the watchful eye
of the club’s manager, Nigel Clough. The Moor Farm training ground is at Oakwood, about four and a half miles from Pride Park, but on a much higher and exposed site. The pitches have to withstand a great deal of wear because of continual use by the Derby County Academy, youth and junior teams. Last year, Andy worked closely with
Paul Moreton, Technical Sales Representative for British Seed Houses, to trial an adapted A20 seed mixture aimed at giving sustained groundcover and cold tolerance to see him through the winter months, especially on the exposed site where temperatures can be four or five degrees cooler than in the stadium. Andy explained that the pitches had
been koroed and seeded from scratch, and that the results had been very good, with the plant proving very hardy, and exhibiting that comforting trait of rebounding instantly after being stood
Renovation work at Derby County’s training ground FIRST TEAM PITCH
Construction - sand rootzone
Irrigation - Rainbird 8005 pop-ups - 16 heads.
Secondary drainage installed
This was achieved by sand slitting with the AFT whizz wheel at transverse directions to the lateral drains, to a depth of 450mm, to link in with the lateral drain. When this was completed, the pitch was fraise mown with four passes to remove the existing vegetation, verti-drained to a depth of 10 inches and topdressed with MM55 sand, then dragmatted. Once the sand had been worked into the holes, the pitch was overseeded in four directions with a British Seed Houses A20 bespoke mix.
MATCH PITCH Construction - sand rootzone
Irrigation - Rainbird 8005 pop-ups - 16 heads.
This pitch was fraise mown with four passes, verti-drained to a depth of 10 inches, topdressed with 60 tonnes of MM55 then dragmatted in. When the
topdressing was worked into the holes, it was overseeded with twenty bags of A20 bespoke mix and 250kg of Everris 8:12:8 pre-seeder was applied.
ALL OTHER FIRST TEAM PITCHES
Construction - sand rootzone
Irrigation - Rainbird 8005 pop-ups - 32 heads.
Each pitch was fraise mown with four passes, verti-drained to a depth of 10 inches then each pitch was top-dressed with 60 tonnes of MM55 sand. The sand was then worked into the holes and each pitch was seeded with twenty bags of A20 bespoke mix. Each pitch was then fertilised with 250kg of Everris 8:12:8 pre-seeder.
ACADEMY PITCHES Construction - clay base
2 x full size pitches - 11- x 72 yards
1 x small sized pitch - 60 x 40 yards
During the close season these pitches had a total of 45 Rainbird 8005 pop-up sprinklers installed, both around the
perimeter and also inside the pitches. This is the first time these pitches have had proper irrigation. In previous years, we have had to rely on a Speedy Rain travelling sprinkler to irrigate, which meant we could not properly renovate with a fraise mow or Koro so, as soon as the irrigation was installed, we renovated as follows:
All pitches were fraise mown in four passes, verti-drained to a depth of 10 inches and topdressed with 150 tonnes of MM55 sand The whole area was then dragmatted before overseeding with forty-five bags of A30 renovator mix and fertilised with 625kg of Everris 8:12:8 pre-seeder.
ACADEMY PITCHES FOR UNDER 9/10s
Construction - clay base
2 x small sized pitch - 60 x 40 yards
These pitches also did not have irrigation and relied on the traveller to water them. So, in the close season they both had twelve Rainbird 8005 sprinklers installed; six in each pitch. No
proper renovation had previously been possible as these pitches did not drain away very quickly. So, when the sprinkler system was installed, the pitches were renovated as follows:
Secondary drainage installed. This was achieved by sand slitting to a depth of 250mm at transverse directions to the lateral drains, backfilled with gravel, and then sand. They were then fraise mown in four passes to achieve a clean surface, vertidrained to a depth of 10 inches, topdressed with 20 tonnes on each pitch, dragmatted in to the holes, seeded with ten bags each of A30 renovator mix, then fertilised with 125kg of Everris 8:12:8 pre-seeder.
All pitch renovation work was carried out by Talbot Landscapes.
All irrigation work was undertaken by Osprey Irrigation using Rainbird sprinklers.
Sand supplied by Mansfield Sand.
Seed supplied by British Seed Houses.
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