Winter Sports - Football


“


We placed training discs on the spots that needed to be repaired. We then worked across the pitch, edging out and preparing the damaged areas


Soil sample taken in January


morning and we placed training discs on the spots that needed to be repaired. We then worked across the pitch, edging out and preparing the damaged areas, before cutting and laying in the new turf to a finished level. The turf was good quality and, unfortunately, did show up the rest of the pitch. I had also brought with me another 260kg of Lebanon slow release 8:4:24, so hopefully this, combined with the feed that went down the week before, would bring the colour of the pitch back up and help these turf repairs marry in. The Lebanon was applied the next day.


The pitch was then double mown/rolled on Thursday and again Friday, and marked out ready for game 25 of the season against Brentford on January 21st. After the repairs and rotary mow in the


Turf replacement - 18th January


We have more root mass now than we did after the pitch was re-turfed in February last season, so I have my fingers crossed that the pitch will get us through this season


” General view of the pitch on 20th January ahead of the Brentford game 54 I PC FEBRUARY/MARCH 2017


week following the Brentford game, we applied seven bags of Limagrain’s Action Replay seed. We gave special attention to the middle of the pitch which was showing signs of wear and tear, following the many midfield battles over the past six months. Primarily, we seeded 18 yard box to 18 yard box and two mowing bands either side of the


half way line going across. Our next game was due to be Norwich on the 29th, but an FA Cup tie away to Manchester United meant this fixture moving back to the 7th February. An away draw was warmly accepted by us, maybe not so by the fans. The upside is that the club should make some money from the shared gate receipts at Old Trafford and there’s a little extra respite for our pitch. We have a daunting fixture list with the rugby league starting again mid-February. As I write, our next game is Sheffield


Wednesday live on Sky on Friday 3rd February. By the time you read this article (end of February), we will have embarked on our dual use schedule again, including eight back to back weekends (rugby/football) in ten weeks. How the pitch fares will be as much dependent on the weather as anything else. We have more root mass now than we did


after the pitch was re-turfed in February last season, so I have my fingers crossed that the pitch will get us through this season, and that spring starts much earlier than it did in 2016.


Good luck to all of you.


Page 1  |  Page 2  |  Page 3  |  Page 4  |  Page 5  |  Page 6  |  Page 7  |  Page 8  |  Page 9  |  Page 10  |  Page 11  |  Page 12  |  Page 13  |  Page 14  |  Page 15  |  Page 16  |  Page 17  |  Page 18  |  Page 19  |  Page 20  |  Page 21  |  Page 22  |  Page 23  |  Page 24  |  Page 25  |  Page 26  |  Page 27  |  Page 28  |  Page 29  |  Page 30  |  Page 31  |  Page 32  |  Page 33  |  Page 34  |  Page 35  |  Page 36  |  Page 37  |  Page 38  |  Page 39  |  Page 40  |  Page 41  |  Page 42  |  Page 43  |  Page 44  |  Page 45  |  Page 46  |  Page 47  |  Page 48  |  Page 49  |  Page 50  |  Page 51  |  Page 52  |  Page 53  |  Page 54  |  Page 55  |  Page 56  |  Page 57  |  Page 58  |  Page 59  |  Page 60  |  Page 61  |  Page 62  |  Page 63  |  Page 64  |  Page 65  |  Page 66  |  Page 67  |  Page 68  |  Page 69  |  Page 70  |  Page 71  |  Page 72  |  Page 73  |  Page 74  |  Page 75  |  Page 76  |  Page 77  |  Page 78  |  Page 79  |  Page 80  |  Page 81  |  Page 82  |  Page 83  |  Page 84  |  Page 85  |  Page 86  |  Page 87  |  Page 88  |  Page 89  |  Page 90  |  Page 91  |  Page 92  |  Page 93  |  Page 94  |  Page 95  |  Page 96  |  Page 97  |  Page 98  |  Page 99  |  Page 100  |  Page 101  |  Page 102  |  Page 103  |  Page 104  |  Page 105  |  Page 106  |  Page 107  |  Page 108  |  Page 109  |  Page 110  |  Page 111  |  Page 112  |  Page 113  |  Page 114  |  Page 115  |  Page 116  |  Page 117  |  Page 118  |  Page 119  |  Page 120  |  Page 121  |  Page 122  |  Page 123  |  Page 124  |  Page 125  |  Page 126  |  Page 127  |  Page 128  |  Page 129  |  Page 130  |  Page 131  |  Page 132  |  Page 133  |  Page 134  |  Page 135  |  Page 136  |  Page 137  |  Page 138  |  Page 139  |  Page 140  |  Page 141  |  Page 142  |  Page 143  |  Page 144  |  Page 145  |  Page 146  |  Page 147  |  Page 148