32 | FEATURE: PITCH MAINTENANCE
installed 3G Turf pitches for a number of independent schools including Hampton School, Shrewsbury House School, St Cedd’s School and City of London School for Boys. For these schools, 3G Turf provides a sports facility that delivers rugby and football safely and to recognised performance standards. Furthermore, these sports facilities are in many cases doubling up as break-time recreation areas, providing important spaces for pupils to exercise, play and let off steam. There are key factors, from design and maintenance, which must be addressed to ensure a high-quality facility that performs consistently for many years. We work with clients to address important considerations at an early stage – identifying the required sports and recreational use, defining the optimum location, selecting the best synthetic turf solution and more. We offer the complete package from design, through construction and including post- completion maintenance services. Establishing whether the facility will host a single sport or activity, for example football or rugby, or a range of sports such as hockey, tennis and netball, will be key to your choice of surfacing system. The good news is that expertise and technology is now available to build sustainable, multi- use sports pitches that facilitate a good standard of play for a number of activities, as well as sport-specific systems that meet national and indeed international performance standards. However, this can only be achieved by engaging specialist advice from the very beginning of your project. That project must include a maintenance programme linked to the surface type, sports played and frequency and intensity of use. Such a programme will be vital to maintaining the performance of the pitch and maximising the return on your investment. A pitch is likely to need drag matting or brushing at least weekly, which can be done, with relevant guidance and equipment, by the school, supplemented by specialist power brushing at three- to twelve-month intervals. We offer a free on-site consultation to assess and discuss the condition of your existing artificial surface facility. This is supplemented by a free written report highlighting where the pitch is performing well and making recommendations where improvements need to be achieved. ISS
Richard Tigwell is Sales and Marketing Executive at S&C Slatter, specialists in construction and maintenance of artificial turf facilities. T: 01635 34521 E:
info@sandcslatter.com W:
www.sandcslatter.com www.stpetersyork.org.uk www.latymer-upper.org
W:
ie-today.co.uk | T: @ie_today
CASE STUDY: SOLIHULL SCHOOL
Karl Brotherhood, Solihull’s Head of Grounds, on how he manages to keep the school’s playing surfaces in tip-top condition
“We have a 50-acre site serving 1000+ pupils. Whilst maintenance of the artificial hockey areas is in itself time consuming, preparation of the rugby pitches often dominates my time during the autumn and winter, and it’s a question of keeping practices in the right places at the right times. We keep our Junior pupils and Senior pupils on separate pitches, not least as the 1st XV squad would destroy the Junior pitches in about 10 minutes! We also manage their pitches slightly differently – our Juniors play football, unlike the Seniors, so the turf is cut shorter. We leave the turf at about 70mm on our Senior rugby pitches. I’d love to have it shorter and looking even smarter – the rugby you’ll see on television will be played on around 28mm – but we have so much rugby played on the same pitches that you need the longer grass to provide as much cushioning as possible. Otherwise, we wouldn’t get to Christmas
› W:
www.solsch.org.uk
without it turning to mud! We also use specialist kit including Earthquake Drains and Verti-Drains, and a vertical spiker to create drainage holes, relieving the compacted soil so that the water can drain off effectively. Another solution I have found very effective is the use of temporary floodlights. “From the October half term onwards, I install five or six temporary lights in the gaps or ‘grids’ between pitches and these, because training sessions need the light at that time of year, dictate where training sessions will take place. Also, any really high-impact exercises– rucks, mauls, ladder drills – will take place on these grids, away from the playing pitches. It’s all about trying to even up the wear and tear. “For the summer term, we install a grass running track that runs through three of our rugby pitches. Pupils who have used the same pitches for rugby during the winter and spring will come back at the start of summer expecting a pristine running track. Our Director of Sport is also Head of Rugby, and is very aware of the importance of other sports and knows that as Easter approaches, we need to start preparing the grounds for the summer sports.”
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