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junior field, the Ponys (13-16) also play around twelve games at home, whilst the adult team, the Jags, play around ten double headers on the main field as well. All the teams train mid-week on three days, which doesn’t leave much time for repair or for the field to recover from game time.
Large trees shade part of the field and we are working to thin these out, where we can, or keep them cut back if they interfere with the field dimensions.
The container we use to store equipment is on a tarmac area, which used to be tennis courts, and we now use this for game day parking as well. At the moment, we also have the use of a very old all-weather pitch, which also gets flooded after heavy rainfall.
Baseball in the north has about twenty teams playing in various leagues of varying standards, with about ten teams playing in the Midlands and about forty teams playing in the south. Also, some areas, like
Nottingham, have little leagues, which means they have local teams who play each other on a weekly basis and, so, don’t have to travel and can all use one field and play midweek.
As I am the only person not working during the week, I cut and white line the infields as well as repair the batting areas and mound as best as I can - considering I only have a window of forty-eight hours before the field is used again! Some coaches also do strimming during the week when players are training.
My time is very much dependent on the weather, as there is not a lot I can do when it is bad. To me, the look of the field is everything, as this is the first thing the players and parents see on game days, and it’s very satisfying being told how well the field looks which makes all the hard work worthwhile.
The main project I am working on this winter is making a batting area on the Bronco field to complement the pitching circle I created last year - all part of the five year plan.
As a volunteer club, we have a Child Welfare Officer and first aiders - each coach attends a first aid course, and coaches, when preparing training sessions, do risk assessments.
The machinery I have to use is an Atco Royale mower, which I purchased off eBay and got going last year. It has a seat attachment, which is a great addition for me, and saves about forty-five minutes mowing time over my old Mountfield mower. I also have a roller, wheelbarrow, a white lining machine and, thanks to a grant from Shell, I purchased a Ryobi Expand It, which is a hand-held implement with lots of different attachments we can use for strimming, bushcutting, hedge trimming - it also has a chainsaw attachment which I haven’t used yet!”
When I have topped up the bases and batting areas, I hire a wacker to firm all the sand and loam together. The only servicing is on the Atco mower, which is done by a local firm called Walsh in Widnes. It would be nice to have a modern ride- on mower, which would enable me to do the entire field and so save on our yearly bill, but this would come a long way down on our list of priorities.
The only problem we suffer from on the field is the odd rabbit hole but, since a pair of Buzzards have taken residence in the nearby wood, this has certainly been reduced. Any holes are fill in with clay and then topped up with soil, which seems to work. The council look after the areas around the field and employ a consultant to do any work.
Any products we use that we find work for our field are then recommended to other baseball clubs. One of the main problems is getting supplies of Redgra. Can anyone help?
We have a web page -
www.Haltonbaseballclub.org.uk - which has information about our club as well as giving game results.
Tel: 01621 892907 Email:
upsonmowers@tiscali.co.uk WASHDOWN SYSTEMS
SITUATIONS VACANT RECRUITMENT
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DECEMBER/JANUARY 2014 PC 151
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