WESTON! W
Super new job at
hen I moved to Weston in August 2007 I had no idea that, come November, I’d
be taking over as Grounds Manager. I moved up to Weston from Plymouth purely because my wife was offered a job that was simply too good to turn down. As Weston already had a groundsman I was looking forward to helping out and being able to spend a little more time with my family during the summer months - or so I thought. I’d been here about three weeks when the current groundsman announced his intentions to stand down after the completion of the end of season renovations and I was asked if I’d be interested in taking over.
So what have I moved to ? Weston-super-Mare is an ECB focus club in the North Somerset area. We have two grounds (Main and East) which are right next to each other. It’s quite an active club, as is to be expected. We provide facilities for our own 3 Saturday sides, 7 Junior sides, Ladies side, Sunday side, and also several other clubs/teams. In total, during the 2007 season, the grounds hosted in excess of 200 games of cricket. The club had a successful 2007 season with the 1st XI finishing 3rd in the West of England Premier One, the 2nd XI gaining promotion, the Ladies and Wizard (U11 & U13) teams all winning their respective leagues.
Various views of Weston-s on a cold and wet January day
super-M Mare Cricket Club
change of clubs and a whole new challenge for Grounds Manager JON LAWRENCE
A move to Weston- super-Mare meant a
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The main square has 14 match tracks, 1 artificial and 4 training tracks. The East square has 9 tracks plus an artificial. There’s also a 4 lane artificial training area and a 2 lane indoor training hall. The main square has been relaid over the past 3 years; half in 2005, the other half in 2006, followed by a complete Koro in 2007. The koroing at the end of the 2007 season was needed to tie the levels of the second stage build together and also to lower one end of the square. Unfortunately, it has resulted in a slight de-stabilisation of the surface which has meant that I was unable to do much work on this square in the run up to the new year. I put this down to how deep the square was reworked to tie the levels together, which resulted in complete removal of the grass (not just the leaf, but crown as well) and the resulting loss of rooting. Due to the weather the contractors weren’t able to start the renovation until well into October (far later than I would have liked)
which has meant that it has been a struggle for the new grass to take. I do now (beginning of January) have a reasonable coverage of grass, though not as thick as I’d like. At the prompting of Anthony Asquith I fed the square with sugars in December and overseeded with another bag of seed and, amazingly, I had approximately 50% germination even during the prolonged cold spell. Anthony’s promise that the sugars would allow germination down to around 4O
I’m aiming to put another bag of seed on in early March with the aim of getting the grass density where I want prior to starting preseason rolling.
The East square is considerably smaller than the main square having only 9 tracks. Unfortunately, this square has a break at approximately 18mm. Looking back in the records this break is likely down to a change from Ongar to Surrey loam in around 2000. I’ll be aiming to sort this during the 2008 renovations. Fortunately, with the problem being fairly shallow I’m hoping to be able to address it just by being aggressive with a linear aerator. I also have a couple of bare patches on the East square which will be addressed as soon as ground temperatures increase a little.
My winter feeding programme has been pretty much ‘normal’. I applied a winter feed (4:6:8+Fe+Seaweed) in October and I expect to add the same again around mid February. Other than that I gave an application of liquid Fe to both squares in early December and sprayed for worms around the same time. Soil samples have been taken from both squares and sent away for analysis though I’m not expecting to receive any great shocks back.
As with my time at Plymouth I seem to be fortunate at Weston that the Executive Committee understand the need to spend money on ground and machinery maintenance. I also have the added bonus of a fully trained mechanic who carries out the majority of the machinery maintenance - cylinder grinding is about the only thing that machines are sent away for. Machinery wise I have the following: Autoroller, Lloyds Paladin, Ransomes Certes (backup), Kubota tractor, land driven gangs, various rotary mowers, Sisis Rotorate ARR/4 and a chain harrow. My spiker is currently undergoing
C seemed to be borne out.
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