Winter Sports - Football
This is a new start for us. After years of just scraping by, Bury has the opportunity to really move forward under the exciting programme of redevelopment that Stewart Day has put in place
” T
he programme of redevelopment at Gigg Lane has taken another giant leap forward as the 2014/2015 season kicked off with a brand new pitch for Bury FC’s JD Stadium.
Its quality is such that chairman Stewart
Day’s dream of witnessing a new era of footballing quality at the club has drawn that much nearer for the ‘Shakers’, currently riding high in Football League 2. As soon as Bury had played its last game of the 2013/14 campaign, sports ground contractor Chappelow Sports Turf moved on site to begin a transformation of the match surface. Head groundsman, Michael Curtis, ordered more cylinder mowers to tend the new
playing area as the club powers up its maintenance regime for what is a quality of turf to rival Premiership clubs, he says. In the post for fifteen years, and coming in
straight from school in 1986 to help out over the summer on a YTS scheme, Michael, still only thirty-four, is cock-a-hoop at the chance to tend a stadium pitch that, until now, had presented one problem after another. “This is a new start for us,” he declares,
“after years of just scraping by, Bury has the opportunity to really move forward under the exciting programme of redevelopment that Stewart Day has put in place.” Sport is just one of several offerings
planned for Gigg Lane - a new hotel and conference facilities, retail units and student
apartments are all part of Bury’s reinvigoration, which includes the return of striker Ryan Lowe and midfielder Nicky Adams to the footballing fold. Thanks to an extensive network of drains laid under the stadium pitch, the waterlogging that has confronted Bury in previous seasons is set to be consigned to history, Michael predicts. Commitment to keeping the pitch in prime
condition comes from the top down, with the chairman keen to use lightweight mowers to limit any risk of compaction. “This is the most extensive renovation of
the pitch that we’ve ever undertaken,” says Michael, “and I’m excited about the outcome.”
PC DECEMBER/JANUARY 2015 I 51
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