Ecoline+ The Choice For Watford

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Ecoline+ The Choice For Watford: Pitchmark’s Ecoline+ has become the line marking paint of choice for FA Premier League club Watford FC.

The demand for using a premium paint at the Vicarage Road stadium led to trials last season, since when Pitchmark have been further developing Ecoline+. Watford FC became the first to use the improved formula at the opening game of the season against Brighton and Hove Albion in August this year.

Ecoline+The Choice For Watford

In 2018 Scott Tingley, Head Groundsman at Watford FC, set out on what was originally a cost exercise and to see if they could establish the use of one paint for all marking.

“We were using top end paint for the stadium and bottom end for the other pitches,” he says, “we wanted to make it one paint but of course the cost had to be taken into account. We looked at Pitchmark and what we found different was their specialisation solely in line marking products.”

The club had been using Pitchmark’s Direct at the Watford FC training ground and academy, located at the University College London Union Shenley Sports grounds in St Albans. Home to five full-size and two goalkeeping/warmup natural grass training pitches as well as a full-size artificial turf training pitch and fourteen college/academy natural grass pitches, there’s a sizeable amount of line marking required. In the stadium only premium quality is acceptable. Ecoline+ offered the ideal all-round solution.  Ecoline+ is one of the most advanced, low volume, ready-to-use line marking paints available, especially when used in combination with Pitchmark’s Eco and Hybrid markers and special nozzles.

Scott says: “we trialled Ecoline+ and we had no issues, only benefits. We use a Pitchmark Hybrid marker which gives us the quality of a spray marker, without compromising the precision and quality of a transfer marker. Fixture dependent, we can mark up to three times a week and with the traditional wheel to wheel and four-wheel spray markers you lose ground cover and it’s too easy to transfer paint.”

The Pitchmark Hybrid overcomes these problems with a three-wheeled spray design, which is easily manoeuvred over wet lines. The cone nozzles give perfect deep leaf coverage, so you only need one pass.

“It’s easy to use, it feels like a normal wheel marker and you get premium quality.” Scott adds, “it’s quite complex though and needs looking after but if we have any issues Olly Boys, the Turfix rep, gives us second to none service and back-up.” (Turfix is Pitchmark’s recently formed sole UK distribution arm). Using advanced Ecoline+ Watford FC join the many examples of Ecoline+ premium line marking seen every week on TV from the best leagues in the world, including the English Premier League and UEFA Champions League.

Pitchmark is a British company based in Bristol +44 (0)1454 776666 www.pitchmark.com

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ROBOCUT To Launch At SALTEX

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ROBOCUT To Launch At SALTEX: McConnel ROBOCUT’s have earned a reputation for performing in the toughest working environments. Now the company are set to expand the ROBOCUT range with the launch of the ROBOCUT RC28, a mower developed for fine turf applications where a light footprint and minimal surface disturbance is paramount.

The ROBOCUT RC28 has been specifically designed for the amenities, landscape, and ground-care sectors.

ROBOCUT To Launch At SALTEX

Designed, developed and manufactured by vegetation control specialists McConnel, the all-new Robocut RC28 is now entering full production. Designed to allow remote controlled mowing of level land and suitable for tackling slopes of up to 55 degrees, the Robocut RC28 key features include:

  • Fuelled up and ready to mow, weighs under 500kg
  • Bi-directional 1.10m mulching deck delivers high quality cut
  • Safe working on slopes of up to 55 degrees
  • Automatic tracking for straight mowing on lateral slopes
  • Full proportional remote control at distances of up to 150m
  • Electric track motors and deck raise / lower eliminates hydraulics
  • Operates at speeds of up to 7.0kph
  • Mowing heights of 30 to 180mm
  • GPS Enabled and Autosteer ready

Powered by a 28hp / 21kW fuel-injected Vanguard petrol engine, the Robocut RC28 is the latest addition to the established McConnel Robocut family. Purpose designed for maintenance mowing, the Robocut RC28 is new from the ground up, light weight and high productivity listing among key design aims.

The new ROBOCUT RC28 will be officially launched at Saltex 2019 and can be seen on stand A095.  McConnel larger RC56 and RC75 ROBOCUT models will also be on display.

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Wimbledon Groundsman Responds To Federer

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Wimbledon Groundsman Responds To Federer: Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal had different opinions on the Wimbledon speed surface. The Swiss player believes it got slower than the previous years while Nadal said it is still the same one. Neil Stubley, who oversees the groundsmen team in the All England Club, said: “Every year we have an independent company come in and test the speed of the courts.

Then we take a lot more of other metrics of the court – firmness, soil moisture, the density of the grass. All of those attribute to the speed of the court. Now all of the data we are collecting each day is telling us each day that they are pretty much where they were last year.

Wimbledon Groundsman Responds To Federer

Typically we will take over 20,000 readings of the hardness of the court during the championships. Over 18,000 tests for chlorophyll density, which tell us how much grass is on the baseline and in the body of the courts. And all of that data is coming back and telling us that the courts are playing the same speed that they were for not only last year but in previous years.”

He is not surprised that there are different opinions on the topic: “Sometimes it is the type of player as well. Certain players that will use certain techniques like topspin would deliberately slow the game down. Humidity will slow it down because of the moisture in the air.

So there’s a lot of variables and sometimes a player might only play three or four matches on grass from one year to the next. So when they come back, they don’t always necessarily remember what it was like the year before.”

Meanwhile Federer spoke about how he starts packing: “It starts with suitcases. You can try to travel with 20 bags but you try to keep it to two-three suitcases. Sometimes we are around the world for eight weeks in a row, you need to have nice jackets and jeans so you have to mix it up a bit.”

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Le Golf National’s Short Game Area

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Le Golf National’s Short Game Area: Not content to rest on its laurels after the stunning success of last year’s Ryder Cup, the team at Le Golf National is continuing to invest in its facilities, building a substantial new training area for short game practice.

Located between the sixteenth green of the Albatros course and the club’s driving range, the new short game area housed a large grandstand during the Ryder Cup. “When the stand came down after the event, all the grass in the area was dead, so it was clear we needed to do something with the ground,” said Lucas Pierré, golf courses and estates manager at Le Golf National. “At the same time, we decided to rebuild all our training areas using better materials. They are really important for us and get a great deal of use, both from our paying golf customers and from our coaches running clinics for local schoolchildren.”

Le Golf National's Short Game Area

“The area between the sixteenth green and the driving range was ideal for this use, as it was already covered by our irrigation system,” said Pierré. “The new short game area was designed in house, jointly by me, by Alejandro Reyes [LGN’s former superintendent, now an agronomic consultant] and by our head golf teacher. We saved as much of the USGA rootzone as possible – it is quite large, with 3,000 sq m of green space, 4,000 sq m of surrounds and 1,000 sq m of sand, in two big bunkers.

“We already have Capillary Concrete on the Albatros course, and we are used to working with their French distributor, Stan Chapus of Greenmix,  so we know that the system works, and we decided on EcoBunker to create the bunker edging. Together they make an advanced system – not cheap, but they work well together. We can keep the sand on the bunker faces; it doesn’t wash down every time there is a big rain.’”

The new area will open in September for use by the local childrens’ golf schools, and be in use when the French Open returns to Le Golf National in October.

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