Summer Sports - Cricket


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n June 2013, Maxwell Amenity’s Mark Allen visited me at the then Portland Pavilion to pen an article while I was preparing the greens for the British Crown Green Senior Individual Merit (Issue 50 - All England Bowls - No Place For The Old). It coincided with an announcement by the landowners Persimmon Homes that Warwickshire County Cricket Club intended to purchase the site as an academy outground which, amongst other fixtures, would host county 2nd XI cricket.


The sports and social club closed its doors in January 2014 and work started on what would eventually become Edgbaston Foundation Sports Ground - named after the club’s charitable arm. The ECB approved


pavilion was completed in the November and I secured a job role in January 2015 as a Sports Development Officer.


The ten-wicket cricket square was a new construction laid in March 2014 by Steven Pask Limited. A four inch depth of Binders Ongar Loam Plus™ was used, along with R9 seed to match the specification at the main Edgbaston Stadium. We often have to correct visitors who make reference to the square being the ‘old slow and low M&B square’ and explain that this was a brand new construction. The original cricket square (laid in c.1929) was dug out at the end of the 1994 season when Mitchells & Butlers CC resigned from the Birmingham & District Cricket League. We know that all eighteen inches (depth) of loam was


removed and have the photos to prove it thanks to a very informative collection lent to us by former head groundsman Neville Hughes. The cricket square accounted for a fair chunk of a £50,000 Sport England grant, but there was still enough in the pot for remediation works to be undertaken on the outfield. This included scarifying with an Amazone Groundkeeper, deep slitting courtesy of a Blec Groundbreaker, vertidraining, some levelling and overseeding. Following the demolition of the boxing club, squash courts and a spectator stand, waterlogging started to occur on the eastern side of the outfield. Ground Water Dynamics were called in and installed their patented energy-passive groundwater


PC APRIL/MAY 2018 I 103


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