Winter Sports - Football
Everyone is very positive and knows exactly what is required. It’s the energy and effort from top to bottom here that makes me feel good about my job
to bring it to the Ground Manager John Carter’s and, ultimately, the Chairman’s notice. The stadium pitch had been acting like a sponge all season. A pitch makeover at the end of that season was the only way to resolve what was otherwise going to be a permanent issue. For Tony, the best way forward was to get rid of the compacted and bobbly top layer of the pitch, integrate sand into the structure, and create a new seeded surface. “John Carter and I put the matter to the Chairman, and he was very receptive. I think he’d realised something was fundamentally wrong at pitch level and welcomed professional confirmation and a practical remedy,” said Tony.
As the end of the 2013-14 season
approached, Tony was asked to put his plan into action. It was his first major project of this kind. “I don’t think there’d been any major refurbishment for ten or more years. It was now really a matter of starting afresh,” he added Engaged by Tony to perform the work was
Lincolnshire-based contractor Fineturf. He’d seen similar refurbishment work carried out by the company at Notts County’s Meadow
Lane and felt it could do a sound job at Priestfield. Work began right after the May Bank Holiday and lasted just three days. The compacted pitch was fraise mown using a Blec Combinator and all debris matter cleared from the playing area, which was then rotavated in two directions using a Kuhn Spike Rotavator. The camber of the pitch was maintained during the renovation by dividing it into four quadrants and the levels of each of these, in turn, set by laser grading, followed by the spreading of 20mm of sports sand.
When all of the pitch quadrants had been
laser graded, the sand was ameliorated into the top 80mm of rootzone. Ground preparations were completed by using a Blec Stone Rake and a new pitch created by applying Limagrain MM60 sports seed at 70gm2
and Headland 14:6:8 fertiliser at 35gm2. Less than a week later, Tony was
delighted to notice that germination was under way.
Well in time for the start of the 2014-15
season, the Priestfield had a lush new pitch. More than mid-way through it, with some pretty wet spells having none of the past detrimental effects, it looks in pretty good shape, better than it has done for years.
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” Gills players have definitely noticed the
improved playing surface and said so to Tony, though he does very occasionally have a bit of an issue with the odd training session on the stadium pitch, but accepts “that’s football” in Division One where, by and large, there aren’t 3G areas to turn to when grassed training surfaces suffer from winter conditions. “The club does very well for what it’s got,” said Tony. “Big club money doesn’t guarantee decent playing surfaces, and having instant resources at your disposal might just lead to complacency. There’s none of that here at Gillingham. You should always make the very best of what you have. That’s what we all try to do at the Priestfield.” “The possibility of a new Gills stadium sometime in the future is exciting and everyone at the club is watching this space. I’d relish such a huge challenge and would love to be involved from the very start in playing surface decisions.” The Gills have been without a manager as
such for some time, relying on a team of four senior coaches. How does that affect Tony? “Everyone is very positive and knows exactly what is required,” he said. “It’s the
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