Winter Sports - Football
“
We decided that we didn’t have the means to keep covers flat and in one place, so we unrolled the mess and folded them up neatly on the West side of the ground
Frost covers in March to keep warmth in the pitch - rolled up like sausage rolls by the latest storm
bands in (for presentation). The iron damage had, by and large, disappeared and now, with the regular watering, the fertiliser and iron were starting to green the plant up again. On the Saturday, we gave it another light
cut/roll with the rotary mowers. The pitch colour was improving by the day. On the Sunday, we cut it both ways with the G860s. It was starting to look half decent again and we came in early on Monday 22nd to get another cut in with the G860s in both directions. As soon as the mowing was finished, we set out the strings and marked the pitch; I used our ‘One-shot’ paint for a really sharp ‘ready for TV’ line. We re- measured the centre circle, Ds and spots as the old faint lines had certainly started creeping.
One thing that I’d forgotten, at this level,
Frost covers folded up neatly on the West side of the ground
I used our ‘One-shot’ paint for a really sharp ‘ready for TV’ line. We re-measured the centre circle, Ds and spots as the old faint lines had certainly started creeping
” 80 I PC JUNE/JULY 2016
was the amount of people who are around on a televised match day - all of whom appear to be given a special task to stop, or get in the way of the groundstaff at every opportunity. The pitch continued its green-up through
the day and, come kick off, looked pretty good. It played well and was widely commented on, with the likes of Hoddle, Owen, Merson et al waxing lyrical about the perfect playing conditions. It made us smile when the Daily Mail column, What’s hot, what’s not, published later on that week summed it up perfectly. We were deemed not hot, “presenting a bowling green surface, instead of the expected bobbly mud bath - United passed the Shrewsbury team to death, winning comfortably with three goals”. So that was the cup run over, good pitch press coverage and plenty of extra, much needed funds into the club coffers. There was still plenty of work for the team
to do in the run up to the season’s end. However, their form, apart from this last cup match, had been on the up and we repaired the pitch on the Wednesday and ran the Honda rotaries over it to pick up any debris, in readiness for another few days of rest before Rochdale arrived the following
Tuesday evening. The home team won 2-0 and the season’s nail biting worries over relegation appeared to be flitting away. We were now into March and thinking
that the warmer weather was just around the corner, (at the same time last year, we were enjoying temperatures in the twenties). However, there was still no sign of any grass growth and the soil temperatures were hovering around 2-3O
C. We repaired the
pitch on the Wednesday and then aerated it on the Thursday, before using the Honda mowers behind the tractor to pick up debris that collected and fell off the back roller of the Wiedenmann. On Monday 7th March, the team trained on the pitch up until lunchtime and then we did a few repairs, before putting out the string lines and mowing across with the Dennis cylinders. We mowed the pitch long ways on the 8th,
overmarked and set the irrigation cycle at intervals to keep the pitch topped up with water. The team continued their good form and beat Coventry 2-1 in another rescheduled match. On the Wednesday, it poured down; we
measured 22mm of rain during the morning, which put paid to any work and we left that for the Thursday to resume. We cut the pitch once both ways on Thursday and Friday, leaving the marking out until the Saturday morning. The team gained another valuable point against Scunthorpe and the pitch played as expected. On Monday 14th March, the pitch was
divoted and repaired. On the Tuesday, we rolled the pitch with the cylinder mowers and then fed it with 225kg of slow release Lebanon 12:6:24 and 160kg of our Premier range 3:3:12. We watered in the fertiliser after application as high pressure had moved into the UK and the week was panning out to be more settled, although temperatures didn’t improve much - still no sign of any new grass seed, one month after seeding. On Wednesday, we prepared the pitch for the Armed Forces annual final, this year
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