Winter Sports - Football
“It was my lecturer, Steve Millar at Oatridge College, who gave me the confidence to take the job at Stenhousemuir and make the jump from golf into football”
M
otherwell Football Club’s Fir Park Stadium has been their home since 1895. The club play in the Scottish Premiership and, at the time of writing,
were lying a comfortable and close third behind Celtic and Aberdeen. In the 2012/13 season, they finished second behind Celtic.
The town of Motherwell is situated a few miles east of Glasgow, with the River Clyde separating it from their closest footballing rivals, Hamilton. Motherwell was once the steel
producing capital of Scotland, which earned it the nickname, Steelopolis. The town’s industrial past is reflected in the club’s football crest which depicts a steelworks with billowing chimneys. The Fir Park pitch came in for some heavy criticism during the first decade of the century. Without dwelling on the problems - it was more 1970s than the twenty-first century, let’s say - the current Head Groundsman, Mikey Ellis, is now providing a playing surface befitting the Scottish Premiership. Mikey has been with the club a little over two years, having progressed through the industry via Bridge Castle Golf Club, Stenhousemuir Football Club, Little Kerse Sports Club in Grangemouth and Celtic Park. “It was my lecturer, Steve Millar at Oatridge College, who gave me the confidence to take the job at Stenhousemuir and make the jump from golf into football,” explains Mikey. “I was taking my SVQ3 whilst working at Bridge Castle, but Steve was convinced I could move across to football. So I gave it a go.” “During my first season with Stenhousemuir, Falkirk FC were ground sharing whilst their new stadium was being built. Jim Dawson, Falkirk’s head groundsman at the time (who is now at Murrayfield) was a big help to me. I also volunteered at some of the Falkirk games when they moved back to their new stadium and also helped out at their training ground.”
“But, without doubt, the experience I gained working under John Hayes for four years at Celtic is what led me to the Motherwell job.” With a capacity of just over 13,500, Fir
The shadow cast by the south stand on a midday in November - Mikey has issues with the goalmouth in front of the stand!
Park is small by comparison to its Glasgow neighbours and English counterparts, but a huge south stand is capable of casting a shadow over most of the pitch during winter. “It blocks out the sun for most of
the time,” Mikey tells me. “In November, the shadow cast is in the opposite 18 yard box for most of the day, so this creates many problems in the shaded area, and especially in the south goalmouth. Air flow is good around the stadium though, so this helps in drying out the surface, but still doesn’t stop the constant threat of leaf spot and algae in the shaded areas.” “Being quite an open stadium we are
prone to high winds swirling around. Scotland is a cold and wet country most of the time,” states Mikey, unsurprisingly. “Frosts and high rainfall are a regular occurrence here in winter. At the moment, we are having problems with four areas of pitch not draining quickly enough, especially the southeast corner. These have been problem areas in the past and are now reoccurring. Regular vertidraining gets us by but, in extremes like we had in the three weeks over the festive period, when 187mm of rain was recorded, we can’t get on to vertidrain and it becomes a major problem.” “We will have to decide what action is needed and, as we don’t have a big window in summer to carry out any major work, we are limited to what we can do. Sand banding is looking the likely option at the moment.”
“I am also discussing with Souter Sports the use of their new Air2G2 aerator to break up the pan just above pipe level, to see if it can open up routes to drains. I have also been boring holes between heating pipes to see if I can get water away, but keep boring into the clay bed. Where I was able to link to drains these have dried out nicely.” These holes were backfilled to pipe level
with rounded gravel, then sand to 150mm below the surface. The remaining 150mm was filled with a Mansfield Fibresand rootzone mix. Bio-sorb was added in at all levels of backfill to absorb as much moisture as possible. “On Saturday 25th January, when rainfall had totalled 303mm in forty days, we struggled with the pitch. On arriving at 8.00am, the pitch was playable,” Mikey explains. “Only 3mm had fallen through the night and everywhere was dry and firm for the game; even wet areas under the covers had dried out nicely. But, by 9.00am, the rain had started again and, by 10.10am, 7mm of rain had fallen; and a further 3mm fell over the next ninety minutes! So, it was all ‘hands to the pump’ with my loyal volunteers, club caretaker, FEBRUARY/MARCH 2014 PC 47
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