Winter Sports A
fter numerous near misses over recent seasons, Cardiff City have won promotion to the Barclays Premier League for the first time in their history, becoming only the
second Welsh side to do so and joining their neighbours and rivals, Swansea City, for the 2013-14 campaign. Premiership football will certainly grace the club’s state of the art, 27,000 capacity Cardiff City Stadium which was officially opened on 22nd July 2009, with a friendly against Celtic.
The stadium pitch is managed and maintained by Phil Williams, who joined the club twelve years ago when their former head groundsmen, Wayne Nash, was promoted to stadium manager. The two of them go back a long way. In an interesting twist, Wayne used to be one of Phil’s apprentices many years ago! Phil is probably one of the longest serving groundsmen in Wales, having begun his career with Tredegar Council as a parks apprentice where, back in the mid 1960s, he achieved City & Guild qualifications in Sports Turf, Amenity Horticulture and Nursery Practice. He then spent the best part of eighteen years working at the British Steel Sports and Social Club, where he looked after a variety of surfaces that included rugby, football, cricket and bowls. This was followed by twelve years working at Eugene Cross Park in Ebbw Vale where he tended the town’s rugby and cricket club surfaces. In 2001, he waas given the opportunity to take over the head groundsman’s role at Cardiff City’s previous home, Ninian Park, following Wayne’s promotion. When news broke of a new stadium being built to replace Ninian Park, both Wayne and Phil took the opportunity to influence a number of decisions, with the new pitch, irrigation system and storage facilities being built to their specification. The stadium must have one of the largest storage areas in the country, housing all the machinery, materials and water storage tanks within the concourse. Phil heads up a team of four, with Roy
Evans as his assistant. Simon Hancock, Liam James and Will Birch complete the team. Will currently works two days a week whilst studying at Pencoed College. As well as the stadium pitch, the team also manages and maintains three other pitches adjacent to the stadium, which are jointly used by the club and the local council. The two natural turf pitches and one artificial are maintained on a daily basis to accommodate the busy fixture schedule. The natural grass pitches are mown daily at 25mm using a Toro triple mower, allowing the clippings to fly. Other tasks such as aeration, feeding and marking are carried out as required. Phil and Wayne’s preference for a Desso pitch was rewarded with one of the best playing surfaces in the Championship, and Phil believes it played a huge part in the club’s promotion, especially now that it is solely used for football. Until the 2012-13 season, the stadium was shared with Cardiff Blues RFC, but their return to Cardiff Arms Park, adjacent to the Millennium Stadium, has allowed Phil much more time to prepare a footballing surface.
Even so, the Desso has been a steep learning curve for Phil and his team as they came to grips with not only its playing characteristics but also the micro- climate within the enclosed stadium. “It requires a completely different approach to maintenance compared to the old pitch in terms of watering, feeding and aeration,” says Phil. “Like most modern sand based pitches they are designed to cope with heavy downpours (plenty of those in this part of Wales), yet still remain playable, but this means they are prone to leaching.” “When the Cardiff Blues were sharing the stadium, we had to cope with around eighty fixtures, and there were often back- to-back games, so changing from football to rugby took its toll on the team as well as the surface. Mind you, we got it down to a fine art in the end.”
“Now that the rugby club have gone, we have more time between fixtures, which helps with planning my lighting and
Now that the rugby club have gone, we have more time
between fixtures, which helps with planning my lighting and maintenance strategy”
JUNE/JULY 2013 PC 67
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