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Winter Sports - Football


Koroing off the turf on 14th May


stadium in February, we also excavated a couple of holes on the east wing and in the centre of the pitch to look at the full profile. As the football season came to an end, we


entered into discussions about taking on the pitch under contract, similar to what we were doing at Shrewsbury Town. It was through Shrewsbury that Wigan had initially made contact and asked me to consult for them.


We were also discussing the way forward,


starting with the end of season renovations. Armed now with a myriad of information, it was decided to remove the newly laid turf, cultivate the profile and add material to help drainage and stability. The turf wasn’t ideal for the future term, it was predominantly a fescue sward grown on a soil base, the soil consisting of 50% silt and clay. The pitch profile was holding water and the profiles dug showed layering of different materials that percolated at different speeds. From the two profiles dug, we had


ascertained that the pitch had been laid over a gravel carpet and layer of drainage sand. Above the sand were two distinct layers, one


of rootzone and then a top 100mm of fibresand. We also carried out regular compaction testing and the ground certainly started to soften considerably with regular aeration using the Verti-drain and Procore. The drain survey had shown two outfalls, on the east and west side of the pitch, with laterals running at 9m centres. Both outfalls had been partially or fully blocked with tree roots and/or litter and debris. These obstructions were subsequently removed. The distance between the drain laterals isn’t ideal either but, as the undersoil heating pipes run above and perpendicular to the drain lines, installing extra drains would mean a major reconstruction of the stadium pitch.


The nutrition and pH results that came


back were both reasonable, there was nothing untoward with the irrigation water either, but the pitch infiltration rates were poor and the nematode count was high; both of these needed to be addressed. I calculated the quantities of existing


fibresand and the rootzone below and worked out the tonnage of materials. From analysis results, I now had the particle size distribution (PSD) for both layers and was able to work out the combined tonnage as well as the new PSD if all mixed together. I looked at three different medium and medium coarse sand options, to combine with the existing rootzone, to decide on how much and what sand I required to bring the rootzone PSD up to a sufficiently comfortable


First cut with the rotary on 3rd June 74 I PC OCTOBER/NOVEMBER 2016 “


level for drainage. This would also need some additional fibre to top up what would become a more diluted profile. With the renovation work calculated and


agreed with the stadium, the last few games were played out on the pitch, Wigan Athletic finishing their season with the League 1 title and the Wigan Warriors maintaining their league form in second place. The last game was Warriors verses Hull FC, the game played Friday evening 13th May. With football over the previous weekend, we could now start work on the pitch and the ALS team descended on Saturday morning to start removing the 40mm turf layer completely from the pitch. In the week leading up to the rugby league game, Ian Forshaw had seen in approximately 400 tonnes of drainage sand and 116 tonnes of concentrated fibre, which had been stockpiled carefully to avoid issues with any crowd management for the last match. By Sunday morning, the Koro’d turf was


stockpiled in the car park, with lorries arriving to remove it. With the turf off, we used an Earthquake through the profile to decompact and sprayed the pitch with eighty litres of Biomass Sugar to help combat the nematodes. The lads then cultivated the pitch and rough graded and consolidated, before spreading the sand and the fibre concentrate. Once all the new material had been spread, it was cultivated and ameliorated well with the existing profile


Armed now with a myriad of information, it was decided to remove the newly laid turf, cultivate the profile and add material to help drainage and stability


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