Winter Sports - Football
this season wore on. Fittingly though, it was eventually presented before the Saints’ home match against Sunderland, which turned out to be a record-breaking 8-0 thrashing for the visitors. That was a good day at the office for all Saints. Pitch lights have been a massive
On pitch watering now in place “ 58
It’s a football venue, plain and simple, and what we have produces a fine surface all season without the expense of Desso installation. Until the need changes, I’ll go with what makes best sense economically
trademarks has been its distinctive pitch mowing patterns, a creative skill Andy says he developed working with Dave Roberts. He quickly points out that it would only ever be done when the match result has no importance at the end of season. “If a team loses, it’s either the ref’s or the pitch’s fault, so we have to make sure there’s no room for criticism.” At the moment, there’s no chance of fancy mowing at St Mary’s with every match critical - and likely to be so right to the wire - in the quest for a Champions League place. In the previous five years, the club has either been at the top of a league trying to go up or at the bottom trying to stay up. Last season, getting a high Premier League place was possible right to the end of the season. With or without fancy mowing, St Mary’s is a winning pitch right now, in all senses. The club keeps rattling up wins on it, and the pitch itself, last season, took the Premier League’s ‘Best Pitch of the Year’ award, although it was an accolade shared jointly with Arsenal’s Emirates pitch. The trophy should have been presented to Andy and his team at the last home game of the season, but wasn’t, and this was delayed further as
contribution to the quality of the St Mary’s playing surface and Andy has had them in his armoury for three years now. Television exposure has meant appearance is everything and, even on this murkiest of murky late November days, the grass looked like a bowling green, its 100 percent ryegrass sward as green and thick as a summer show lawn. Stadium Head Groundsman, Ian Lucas, and his assistant, Danny Silvestre, take huge credit for keeping St Mary’s looking every inch an award winning pitch. Andy tells me the club want the best in all
regards these days and he had no trouble whatsoever convincing the board that lighting rigs would help deliver an immaculate season-long surface, pleasing the Premier League, television and paying supporters. It was a no-brainer for latter day Saints. “They do listen to me, but we have to
deliver. What do you need to get us the best pitch? I tell them, and it has to be right,” he says firmly. There are now six MU360 lighting rigs
from SGL. The first three were purchased in November 2011 for use on the most shaded south end of the pitch. They did such a good job that they made the north end look bad by comparison, Andy tells me, so three more were purchased to achieve a uniform sward appearance. They are first switched on in mid-October and keep the ‘sun shining’ on the St Mary’s grass until the middle of March. During matches, they are stored in a fenced-off part of the car park. “They are a pain, but it’s one I suffer
gladly, because they do such a good job,” says Andy. “Three hundred and sixty 1000- watt bulbs burning 24/7 means you can treat the pitch as if it’s summer all year round. After a Saturday match, they are back burning by 7.00pm, and keep doing it until the Friday morning before the next Saturday match.”
The lights mean there is more control over the maintenance routine and there is little variation. Mowing to 25mm year round - daily in summer, every other day in winter - using Dennis G760s. The final look is achieved by a crossways cut on Friday and lengthways on match day morning. On-hold pattern mowing would be a different matter, but that’s way off. There is regular alternation of granular and liquid fertiliser, over a two-week routine in summer, gradually changing to three and then four during the playing season. The stadium pitch is watered daily using a
I PC DECEMBER/JANUARY 2015 360,000 watts of added value grass growth
Hunter system with fourteen G995 sprinkler heads around the pitch and six I-90 turf risers in two sets of three within the pitch, these being installed in the summer break specifically with pre-match and half-time watering in mind. “Short and wet is what modern day players and coaches insist on,”
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