Summer Sports - Cricket
“
We get frost just like everywhere else in the area. However, the shadows from the surrounding trees cause it to hold longer than most
A hive of activity on the outfield during junior coaching ...
It’s not a slope on the scale of Lord’s, but it’s a factor.” "We have five senior men’s teams, a ladies
team, two midweek teams and several youth teams. The club has a real community feel.” There are approximately seven acres here, split between the two cricket pitches and the tennis courts.”
“Being so high above the Six Mile Water, flooding is not a risk, but we get frost just like everywhere else in the area. However, the shadows from the surrounding trees cause it to hold longer than most.” “The only real issue I have to contend with is the morning dew. It seems to be particularly heavy, perhaps it’s being so close to a river or Lough Neagh, but it can cause issues when matches start early. I’ve seen times when this dew lies to well after noon.”
“We used to have a tree line of Leylandii
The ground is high enough above Six Mile Water as to not be at risk from flooding
I am very lucky to have a number of volunteers at my disposal, but it’s usually organised chaos
” ... and during cricket nets 82 I PC FEBRUARY/MARCH 2016
separating our two pitches and this caused a severe shadow during the winter months on the Nursery pitch. This tree line was removed in 2009 and the result was instantaneous, although it did change the appearance of the ground somewhat. We have thinned out
other tree lines as much as possible to allow light and air in.” “We are pretty much surrounded by trees, and this causes the usual headaches with moss. We did remove a number of old Larch trees from around the ground and this has helped with the light in certain areas, however we do have to manage moss on areas of the outfield.” “Luckily, I have a great contractor, McLaughlin Sports Turf. They have been working with us for a number of years now and we are seeing an improvement year on year.”
“We also have an all-weather pitch as well
as both the main square and the nursery ground, and two artificial practice bays.” “There are four all weather tennis courts,
for which the bulk of the work is done by contractors as and when. We recently had two of them renovated and trialed a paddle tennis court in them, which is a cross between tennis and squash, which was a huge success.” Michael follows a pretty straightforward
maintenance routine and, being the main man in charge, knows it inside out. “Our
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