Summer Sports - Cricket Menai Bridge Cricket Club
Our existing ground was developed in the early 1970s from just an ordinary farmer’s field. It involved the removal of a number of large trees and the removal of a considerable amount of soil to build up the lower part of the outfield. There is a slightly downward slope from the main car park to the bottom of the outfield.
Keith Hughes, Volunteer Groundsman at Menai Bridge Cricket Club (Clwb Criced Porthaethwy).
How long have you worked at Menai Bridge? I have been a member of the cricket club since 1973 when I joined as a junior member. 2014 is my forty-first consecutive season playing for the club. I have been looking after the square for about eighteen years.
What staff do you have? We have a small group of club members who carry out various tasks. Steve Jones (Club Chairman) does the mowing of the main grass banks surrounding the ground. Robbie Jones (Club Captain) helps on the square and outfield. Cefyn Owen cuts the outfield. Chris Drake cuts the general grass area on which the nets are located.
A lot of other members will give up their free time to help when things crop up or when somebody is not available to carry out certain tasks.
What level of cricket do you provide for, e.g. local league, premier league, minor counties, first class? We have three XIs playing Saturday League cricket in the North Wales Cricket League.
1st XI play in the Premier League 2nd XI play in Division 1 3rd XI play in Division 4
Are your facilities used by local schools and/or county junior games? We let the local comprehensive school use our facilities for matches. (It is only five minutes from the ground). We host a Junior Cricket Kwik Kricket festival for the local Primary Schools in June every year. We also host a number of touring sides during the season. We play local junior and senior county fixtures at the ground. In 1985, we hosted Wales v Ireland in a three day international fixture.
We have hosted a number of benefit matches against Glamorgan CC over the years.
Describe your cricket facility in terms of loam content, size of the square and the number of fixtures?
56 I PC AUGUST/SEPTEMBER 2014
We use Boughton County loam, having switched from using their Club loam a number of years ago to increase the clay content in the square. The square has thirteen pitches on it and we play about 50- 60 matches per season covering senior/junior/representative fixtures. The number of matches also depends on the weather, though our ability to be able to host more matches has increased with the purchase of roll on covers and sheets.
What end of season renovations do you plan to undertake? Restoration of the square including all the ends, restoring the playing surface levels and aeration of the outfield.
When are you planning to carry out the renovations? We aim to start the work as soon as the season finishes
What is your budget? We budget for about £1,200.
Describe the sequence of work - e.g. cutting, scarifying, aeration etc., and also tell us what machinery and/or products you use for each operation?
Our end of season work is very much weather dependent in this part of Wales. Sometimes you organise everything and then it might rain for a week. We will double cut the whole of the square as low as possible in at least three directions and will then scarify in three directions, to remove as much thatch as possible and to provide a good seed bed. We will mow off all the debris and use a vac blower to clear out all the lines created by the scarifier. We use both a Graden and Sisis scarifier to do the work. We will aerate using a Groundsman aerator with 6” solid tines. We will aerate in a number of directions to get as many holes into the square.
Our end of season work is very much weather dependent in this part of Wales. Sometimes you organise everything and then it might rain for a week
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We will seed the square with 2/3 bags of Johnsons iSeed, which we have found to be very good. It provides very good coverage. It germinates quite quickly as well.
We will spread between 8-10 bags of loam per strip. We use a mechanical spreader for this task which gives an even distribution.
We will lute in the loam and then dragmat it to get our levels.
We will apply an autumn/winter fertiliser to give the ground a bit of a boost. If it is particularly dry, we will water the square if no rain is imminent.
We hope we don’t get too much rain until the seed is established as our square slopes from one side to the other and, in the past, a lot of seed and loam has been washed into the outfield and we have had to do the work again.
If finances allow, we will aerate the outfield with a deep spiking just to relieve the surface.
We can’t afford to do a scarify of the outfield or a significant re-seed.
We will use some germination sheets to aid quicker establishment and to offer a bit of protection from poor weather if it occurs.
The majority of the machinery is supplied by the North Wales Cricket Groundsman’s Association who have two trailers of machinery to cover all of North Wales. The initial trailer was supplied by the ECB. The Association has then, over a number of years, acquired another trailer, plus various pieces of equipment and machinery. The Association carries out a lot of end of season work for clubs in the North Wales League as well as some clubs in Merseyside and, in the last couple of years, have been down into Mid-Wales carrying out end of season renovation work there.
Finally, do you have any advice or tips on how to ensure a successful renovation?
We try and do our renovations as soon as possible after the season has ended to allow for good germination before any bad weather arrives.
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