Winter Sports
around twenty years ago, my first job as an assistant greenkeeper at Overstone Golf Club. I then worked as a groundsman at Northants CCC, before taking on the head role at newly elected Rushden and Diamonds FC (now defunct!). I left Nene Park to become Head Groundsman at White Hart Lane, before returning to my roots and running my own business. My company has been trading for eight years now. One of our clients is Northampton
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Town FC and, as a League 2 side where cash is vital, I’ve had to draw on all my experience with my great team to steer the club successfully through its fixture list.
Losing a game to the weather means disrupting cash flow. Balancing what this meant through, what can only be described as a woeful period of weather from mid December-mid January, was no easy task. To start this particular tale, I met with the club’s stadium manager, Avril Spraggon, on 17th December (the beginning of the week), as we usually do, to discuss the forthcoming week’s arrangements. Alongside the fixture list, the first team generally train on the stadium pitch at least once a week. Looking at the forecast, I had concerns about the weather at the back end of the week. I was being told that there were two weather fronts on the way, one due on Thursday and, more worryingly, the second arriving on Saturday morning when we were due to host Aldershot. At this stage, mid way through the season, the pitch was still in pretty good condition. The forecast for Thursday had become ominous - heavy rain was on the way and was due to hit us by the afternoon, so we asked the club to underwrite the cost of a vertidrain of the pitch. Such is the ‘hand
run a Northants based Landscape and Groundscare Company employing two full time staff and a team of sub contractors throughout the year. I started in the industry
to mouth’ existence at these clubs that these decisions aren’t taken lightly, whereas my previous life at Spurs, I would have seen the pitches spiked anyway, just to be safe. With the club’s agreement, I called on the help of Dave Saltman (Pitchcare MD) and, within two hours, one of his contracts team had arrived at Sixfields with a John Deere tractor and Wiedenmann Terraspike to ‘vertidrain’ the pitch in a four inch pattern at an eight inch depth. I must pay tribute to them, because, as the last run was completed, the rain started and continued through the afternoon, evening and night. We wouldn’t have got back on without this operation. Despite reaching our first objective - getting millions of holes into the pitch before it got wet - I was still troubled about the forecast and persuaded the club to give me a second order number for a Bowdry water remover. I ordered this on the Thursday afternoon and it was dispatched that evening. On Friday morning, the pitch was okay and had taken the considerable rainfall quite well. Thankfully, it stayed dry and the water moved away down through the profile during the day. By 2.00pm I was getting a bit anxious as I hadn’t received the Bowdry but, just an hour later, it arrived and I busily put it together. Not bad service on the last proper delivery day before Christmas.
Match day - Saturday 22nd December vs Aldershot
I arrived at the ground at 8.00am and walked out on the pitch. At this stage, the rain was steady. The pitch had taken the overnight rain well, but I could see the water had started to fill the aeration holes at the south end of the pitch, and we were now sitting on a rising water table. According to the forecasters, the worst rain was due to move through between 9.00am and 12.00 noon and, sure enough, this is what transpired. By 10.30am surface water was visible in some areas. I put my team on standby with
Wiedenmann Terraspike at work ahead of the forecast rain
Surface water appears on the morning of the game against Aldershot, but had gone by kick off
FEBRUARY/MARCH 2013 PC 61
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