Winter Sports - Football “ “ 92 I PC JUNE/JULY 2017


Due to the cold weather and the need to get on the pitch, we turned on the undersoil heating for the night; the next morning the pitch was vertidrained in a low gear, with no heave, to full depth


The pitch on 3rd February


morning of the 6th as we had to wait for a heavy frost to thaw, but the lads managed to finish off divoting and get the Alletts out to settle the surface again. Due to the forecast, the white lines were brightened and straightened up, before another 9mm of rain descended during the night. 7th February, match day, Latics played


Norwich gaining a draw. Pitch held up well generally, but grass loss through the middle, particularly in the warm up areas, was becoming more apparent as each game passed. Due to the cold weather and the need to get on the pitch, we turned on the undersoil heating for the night of the 8th; the next morning the pitch was vertidrained in a low gear, with no heave, to full depth. Tony and Adam continued the pitch repairs whilst Rob sat freezing on the tractor, going up and down.


On the 10th February, we applied 180kg of Maxwell Premier 3:3:12 to keep the plants


ticking over nicely. We also turned off the heating as the forecast showed temperatures rising again under thick cloud cover. More rain returned for the next couple of


days, with regular showers day and night. The lads worked around the weather to finish off the repairs. On the 15th February, Rob sprayed the


pitch with 40kg of Sol Control 13:0:39, 20 litres of SeaAction seaweed and another 5 litres of phosphite to help strengthen the plants.


The next two days, the pitch was mown


both ways and then marked out before game 28 on the 18th when we played host to Preston North End. We had steady drizzle throughout game, which helped keep the surface firm. Straight after the game, we set about turning it around for the rugby match the next day. The match day staff stayed with us for an hour or so to help with divoting, before we mowed the pitch with rotaries and greened out the football markings.


We removed all the football goals and put up the rugby posts before calling it a night around 1.00am. The following morning, the lads marked


out for rugby and walked the pitch to repair as many scars as possible. We irrigated in the morning after marking out and drizzle again came for the game as Warriors played Cronulla Sharks in the World Club Challenge - the Warriors victorious. On the 20th February, it rained throughout


the day and we applied another 60kg of seed, spread from 18 yard box to 18 yard box with the fertiliser spreader, hoping that much of it would find its way to the bottom of stud marks. The lads worked hard over the next three


days, mostly in the rain, to get the pitch repaired and ready for the second weekend of back to back fixtures. Around 54mm of rain fell in those three days as Storm Doris hit the UK. As a result of the storm conditions, the


The lads worked hard over the next three days, mostly in the rain, to get the pitch repaired and ready for the second weekend of back to back fixture


Working late into the evening on 18th February


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