Winter Sports - Football
Whilst some of their northwest rivals are struggling in the lower leagues, ‘little old Burnley’ are enjoying life in the Premier League once again. None more so than their Head Groundsman, Paul Bradshaw, who is relishing preparing pitches at the top table. Whilst their stay may be short, according to most pundits, the Clarets at least have a pitch worthy of the top flight and one which offers Sean Dyche’s men every chance of survival
Paul and Chris cutting the Turf Moor pitch with their new Dennis G860s ahead of the game against West Ham
First half action with the score at 0-0
Moor, Paul applied glyphosate to kill off all the vegetation; whilst the grass was dying off, the club were still using the pitch for corporate games and school cup finals. As soon as these were over, Premier
Pitches came in at the end of May and, within three days, had completely renovated the pitch. The first task was to clean off the surface debris to expose the Desso fibres. This was followed by a rake and relevelling of the pitch, applying eighty tonnes of Mansfield sand, verti-draining to a depth of 120mm and putting on an 8:12:8 pre-seed fertiliser, ahead of drilling in several directions with sixteen bags of Johnsons Premier seed. With favourable air and soil temperatures,
the seed quickly germinated and, within a couple of weeks, the sward was receiving its first cut using the Hayter 56 pedestrian rotary mowers set at 35mm. After several
“
On match days, all the staff report for work at the stadium, coming in early to prepare the pitch and stay until at least two hours after the match to replace divots and rotary mow the pitch
cuts with the rotaries, the Dennis G860s were introduced to improve the quality of cut and help firm up the pitch, gradually reducing the height to 25mm. It was then a case of getting into a steady
cycle of cutting and feeding to promote growth and increase sward density. Paul’s feeding programme at the stadium is very much like other clubs; a base feed followed by a regular topping up with liquid feeds and biostimulants. The club’s training ground is situated in
the grounds of Gawthorpe Hall, an 18th century mansion now owned by the National Trust and run in partnership with Lancashire County Council. Affectionately referred to as the “Downton of the North”, Gawthorpe Hall was redesigned in the 1850s by Sir Charles Barry, designer, amongst others, of the Houses of Parliament and the ‘real’ Downton Abbey, Highclere Castle in Berkshire.
It is interesting to note that Burnley were
the first league football club to build a dedicated training complex way back in the 1950s, however, many clubs have now surpassed Burnley’s facilities. The training ground provides one single
Fibresand natural grass pitch, one 3G synthetic pitch and a smaller synthetic training area. Adjacent to these pitches, there are a number of additional soil base pitches that are used extensively when conditions allow. However, they were often prone to flooding in the winter months. With the return to the Premier League, the opportunity to invest in these pitches became available, with the club modifying three soil based pitches by incorporating around 23,000 square metres of Fibresand and installing irrigation and drainage systems. My visit to Turf Moor coincided with the game against West Ham on 19th October. I
PC DECEMBER/JANUARY 2015 I 45
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