FOOTBALL


were spinning when they were trying to pull the pipes in. The pipes are all up, down, left and right. They are not uniform and are meant to be down at a depth of nine inches across the whole pitch. But there are many areas where we are lucky if they are six and a half inches down. We are unable to go any lower than a depth of five inches when using a verti-drain or the Toro ProCore. Ideally, I would like to be going in a lot deeper to try and get a link from the surface to the drains below. Another problem we are having with the pipes is they are baking the heavy content of soil we have in the pitch. So, three to four inches around the pipes is like concrete, which I am unable to try and cure due to the restrictions of depths we can aerate.”


Ongoing drainage issues


In the 2017/2018 season, the club had to call off five first-team games and two youth ties, which was costing the club money. This set off the alarm bells and Dale was asked to come up with a plan to help improve the drainage and overall quality of the pitch. “We had to put our thinking caps on, as money is everything. We can’t afford to put in a custom-built rootzone or


Fibresand pitch. After much thought and obtaining outside advice from a long-term consultant, we put a plan in place. We started by Koroing off the pitch to remove all the Poa Annua which covered at least 90% of the surface and removed the heavy thatch layer that had accumulated over the years. We located five heating pipes going the full length of the pitch and excavated them out and installed 100mm drains right down into the gravel raft. Then the pitch was rotavated to relieve as much compaction as we could and dressed with 540 tonnes of sand. The pitch was then power harrowed to try and improve the water retention of the surface. Gravel bands were then installed across the pitch to help connect the new drains and hopefully link in to some of the old drains. The Graden box was then used to re-level the surface and reinstate the camber. Finally, we overseeded with a 100% perennial ryegrass mix and applied a pre-seed fertiliser. I can’t wait now to see if what we have done this pre-season will pay dividends this year. I have already seen some slight improvements in the percolation rates since we completed the work six


The weather has been rather rainy; I can’t


remember a week without at least a day or night of rain. We have had some numbers in the gauge ranging from 5mm, to the gauge overflowing at 30mm plus


62 PC December/January 2020


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