Winter Sports - Football
Academy training on the current 3G pitch at Staplewood
Training, on a cold crisp morning, ahead of the November home game against Leicester
side of a grandstand, where the club’s under-21 and under-18 sides train and play matches. Laid a year earlier was the first team pitch, also Fibresand, and now adjacent to the new Mark Liebherr Pavilion, named in honour of the late recent owner who saved the club from administration. The Pavilion was opened at the beginning of November and houses state-of-the-art indoor training facilities. Staplewood’s other existing grass pitch is
Getting reading for the second 3G “
There’s genuine camaraderie among Premier League groundsmen. We are often in touch with each other, swapping tips and even getting a look at each other’s pitches
natural soil based, but this is due to be up- graded to a Fibre pitch in March, for completion in May. The first three Fibresand pitches and the 3G were constructed successfully and satisfactorily by contractors Kestrel, Andy tells me. Earlier this year, the club bought further land enabling the construction of five more grass pitches - one full size, and four varying size academy pitches - and another 3G. It was to be a massive expansion. CRL moved straight from St Mary’s, once the stadium pitch refit had been completed in May, to begin work on the new training pitches construction. The extended 11-pitch complex is scheduled to be completed early in 2015.
The budget for the project, with the six
new pitches, plus all the walkways and landscaping, is £2 million. It wouldn’t mean much in the January transfer window but, as autumn turned to winter, it looked like
another of Saint’s home-grown products would soon be bearing fruit. As Andy takes me around the complex, it
is still very much a work in progress. The grass pitches had already been constructed and seeded and he was pleased that the late autumn weather was being so conducive to growing. Each day, he’d been counting the leaves, he admits, and reckoned a couple of the pitches were near enough ready for play. The spec for construction was his, so he does have a ‘growing interest’, you might say. He was hoping for a wet and warm winter. He wants continuous growth rather than stop-start surfaces. This day, at least, was tailor-made for him. Graeme Mills is the Head Groundsman at
Staplewood, heading up a team of five, soon to be seven when the complex is in full flow. He and Andy have a good working relationship with all of the club’s coaching staff, right up to the new boss Ronald Koeman. There are daily discussions concerning pitch conditions. This particular day was a day-off for the first team squad - they’d just earned a draw at Villa Park - but they would be at Staplewood training five days a week come rain or shine. Toro triples do the cutting work at
Staplewood. A Verti-Drain and Toro ProCore tackle aeration needs both at Staplewood and at the stadium. There’s plenty of other kit and Andy is especially keen on his TYM
Work in progress. One of the new Staplewood pitches four weeks after seeding 60 I PC DECEMBER/JANUARY 2015
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