TENNIS
unlikely to go ahead in 2020. However, this was not confirmed (and would not be for another week or so) so we had to continue to prepare as if it would go ahead, just in case. On top of this, as a members club our grass court season goes on into September. If the club were able to re-open, there would be an expectation that courts would be available.
What therefore followed was an incredibly surreal week of work, aimed primarily at delivering a tournament we were pretty sure wouldn’t go ahead. The weather through the autumn and winter had already put us on the backfoot, to the point that we only completed autumn renovations on some of our courts in early April.
With everything that has happened over the last few months, it is worth noting that it is easy to forget how awful the winter of 2019/20 was. Like many venues in our industry we suffered, unable to maintain surfaces which sat wet for months. We do realise how lucky we have been to continue maintaining our site and surfaces through the lockdown. We know many smaller venues and clubs will have not had
this opportunity, likely for understandable financial reasons, and the impact of vastly reduced maintenance during the pandemic will only exacerbate the problems caused by the winter we’ve all faced. As an industry we’re going to have to really pull together to support each other, and particularly the smaller clubs and grass roots venues that contribute so much to our industry, as well as sport in this country.
As mentioned above, the first week of lockdown working was incredibly unusual. We had two courts which required a full autumn renovation as they had been in play until late September, when the weather changed, seemingly permanently! We also had another three courts which required a full top dressing as we’d been unable to complete this work the previous autumn. However, to really top things off, the three courts which had received a ‘full’ autumn renovation also required a full over seed and top dressing to address the damage the winter had caused.
As noted in some of our previous articles, we aim to keep a winter cutting height of 12mm, as this allows better air movement
As we headed into early May, we were becoming
increasingly optimistic that some restrictions might be eased, and so we started to assess where we were with our grass courts
94
PC June/July 2020
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