Winter Sports - Football
“ M
The grass was holding so much water, the plant wasn’t healthy, it was just sitting in anaerobic soil - it was horrible to work with - you’d just be swimming in water all of the time
The Valley pitch in 2013 - fighting a losing battle 60 I PC APRIL/MAY 2015
ost home games last season saw Charlton Athletic trying to grind out victories on a waterlogged pitch; a pitch that was originally built in the
1950s. It became obvious that the surface, which had graced so many gifted players over the years, had finally had its day. Drains had collapsed, laterals were blocked and Nathan was losing a severe amount of sleep. “We were fighting a losing battle. We had
a couple of games called off and it was just an absolute nightmare. Bad luck follows you everywhere and every Saturday last season it just happened to rain. The grass was holding so much water, the plant wasn’t healthy, it was just sitting in anaerobic soil - it was horrible to work with - you’d just be swimming in water all of the time.”
Nonetheless, a change of ownership at the
club brought new aspirations and, at the start of 2014, they agreed to a new pitch installation. Sports surfaces construction specialists, Souters Sports, arrived at The Valley on the 19th of May 2014 and quickly got to work. The aged and deteriorating drainage and irrigation system was removed and replaced before filling and levelling it all off. Eighteen new laterals with a geo-texture layer were then fitted, with the new pipes redirecting drainage to a manhole at the north end of the pitch. Five weeks later and Nathan had a brand spanking new pitch. “I treat this pitch as my baby now. Last
year - and the years before - it wasn’t my pitch. But this is mine and it is my baby,” says Nathan. His passion for what he does on a daily
basis is clearly evident but, at one point, it looked as though Nathan could have been playing on the pitch rather than maintaining it:
“I played at quite a high level, but I didn’t
quite make it. I felt that I wanted to be as close to the game as possible and groundsmanship was the next best thing. I have no regrets and I still play occasionally, but my job here needs my undivided attention.” Nathan’s journey to becoming a Championship groundsman started at Henley on Thames at the Berkshire College of Agriculture. After his studies, he became a deputy head greenkeeper at two golf courses, before moving to London after landing the head groundsman role at the Honourable Artillery Company (HAC).
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