ARTIFICIAL PITCHES
Replay Maintenance at work at Repton School, which suffered flood damage from contaminated water
KEEP IT SIMPLE The most appropriate type of maintenance is fairly simple to carry out. A simple tractor unit with a drag brush and a drag mat, when properly used, is all that is required to keep a pitch in good condition. Weed suppression is also important. Additional fill materials should be applied infrequently, based on use and the relative amount of free pile exposed when assessed against the manufacturers recommendations. A specialist maintenance company should be employed to carry out specialist maintenance such as decompaction and decontamination. In all circumstances the manufacturer’s recommendations should be followed. Often, the issue of drainage becomes a priority following heavy rainfall or flooding – as in the case of Repton School in Derby, UK where a local river flooded both of its water- based and sand-dressed surfaces. Replay Maintenance responded to an urgent call from the school after severe damage to the facilities completely stopped play. Darryl Parkinson, grounds manager at
Repton School, said: “We suffered from severe flood damage from contaminated water, but the equipment, speed of reply and speed with which Replay were able to assess and repair the damage was very impressive. It all ran very smoothly and is definitely an avenue we would like to go down on an annual basis.”
UNMAINTAINED – UNWORKABLE If a pitch is not maintained then it does not take long for the negative effects to become apparent. The fill materials will become uneven and the distribution will be poor. Compaction will occur and the free pile level may exceed the design parameters resulting in the pile
IF A PITCH IS NOT PROPERLY MAINTAINED, IT DOES NOT TAKE LONG FOR THE NEGATIVE EFFECTS TO BECOME APPARENT
becoming flat. If left the situation may become difficult to remediate. Loss of fill and contamination occur making the pitch firm and fast in terms of ball surface interaction. A pitch which lacks maintenance can fail NGB requirements and become somewhat unsafe. Ground staff can perform rudimentary
testing to index the performance of a pitch to assess the need for maintenance and can be used to assess the effects of maintenance processes. The ball roll and ball bounce tests are very effective at assessing the condition of a playing surface and can be carried out quite easily by trained ground staff. During inspection of surfaces, the most common problems
Table 2: Maintenance factors for different pitches
Maintenance factor Less than 200
250 -500 500 - 800 800 - 1000
Greater than 1000 72
Maintenance intensity Very low maintenance
Low maintenance
Frequent maintenance High maintenance
Very high maintenance Typical venue
Club only stadium pitches Club training grounds Schools/clubs
Community pitches Five–a-side centres
observed are compaction of infill – characterized by the pitch being firm under foot – can cause pile flattening. This is sometimes caused by loss of infill, which occurs under normal use from players and environmental conditions. Seam failures – in lines, penalty spots and seams – and wear and tear in the goal areas are other problems sometimes associated with artificial surfaces.
END GAME In an increasingly litigious society, maintaining a pitch in a safe condition is fundamentally important. What more, certification rules which require cyclic (annual or bi-annual) testing effectively provide an audit of the facility. These directly measure the effectiveness of maintenance procedures – bringing increasing focus to the issue. Evidence suggests that the average
owner hasn’t yet grasped that maintenance is an essential part of post-construction responsibilities. Brushing ‘little and often’ and top dressing can result in a lot less intervention work by specialists early in the lifecycle of a pitch facility. l
sportsmanagement.co.uk issue 4 2014 © Cybertrek 2014
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