Winter Sports - Football
“Fibrelastic came along a few
years ago and Bristol City and Newcastle were the first to install it in 2007. The beauty of it is that, although it is a reinforced material, unlike Desso, which gets a little too firm in my opinion, it comprises 80% by volume sand and 20% by volume organic matter, reinforced with both Polypropylene and Elastane fibres, so it has more give, but you maintain the stability. It is the next generation up from the Fibresand pitch.” “We’ve had to learn some
new skills. Perhaps the biggest thing is getting the correct moisture content. We have played about with this over the years and have found it varies depending on the environment. It depends on your irrigation system, of course, but we feel 35% moisture content in the profile is when the product plays at its best. It doesn’t play particularly poor if we don’t have 35%, and we don’t want to have to keep throwing that amount of water on it if we haven’t got games, so we do let it drain and dry off a little bit. But, for playability reasons, when we have games, 35% is a real nice moisture level to achieve.” “Obviously, Molineux is a bit
different as it has shaded areas, so we have to manage it differently as these shaded areas hold on to the moisture, so we don’t need as much in there. We take moisture content readings prior to and leading up to games so we know where we are, and can level up the moisture content so there is no more than 5-10% difference in moisture.” “Whilst we occasionally take
Clegg hammer readings over the season, we know ourselves, just by walking on the surface, when it is getting too firm. So we will just aerate it with 13mm solid tines on the Toro ProCore and that seems to alleviate any problems from there on in. Then we will give it a couple of weeks to breathe and roll it back down again. Then the pitch will be ready to go again and receive a bit more moisture.” As we conclude our interview,
I ask Paul what tips he would give other groundsmen to help improve their pitches. “I think the first thing is to
absolutely do the basics right. Let’s start by having a clean mower and a blade that is sharp and set right because, if you haven’t, then you are going to get ragged edges and, therefore, poor nutrient uptake, poor colour and disease outbreaks. So let’s start with a clean mower.” “And let’s not constantly be on the pitch working at it all the time when it doesn’t need it. The pitch needs a rest, so fix it as quickly as you can after a match. I can’t put enough stress on divoting the pitch to maintain and improve surface levels. And repair scars; let’s get the pitch back into order quickly.”
“Keep nutrient levels up as
much as you can afford to. If you can’t afford the levels that we can, then try and choose a slow release that can maybe see you over a longer period of time - a nice base feed topped up with other feeds. Keep moisture levels correct. Basically, just stick to good practices and do not over abuse the pitch.”
20 1 4 / 1 5 C A T A LO G U E Our latest catalogue is bigger and better than ever.
This year we are celebrating ten years of being at the forefront of sports equipment innovation and design.
OR DE R TO D A Y 015 0 2 710 0 3 9 PC JUNE/JULY 2014 I 59
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