GreenMech appoint Phoenix Hire & Sales

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GreenMech appoint Phoenix Hire & Sales: Strengthening their representation in Wales, GreenMech Ltd have announced the appointment of leading plant and tool dealers, Phoenix Hire & Sales Ltd.

Operating out of five depots across South Wales, the GreenMech range of pedestrian, road-tow and tracked chippers becomes the latest franchise in their specialist Arb and Grounds division.

GreenMech appoint Phoenix Hire & Sales

GreenMech appoint Phoenix Hire & Sales

With a client base spanning hire firms, engineering, utilities, railway contractors and more, Phoenix have the largest fleet of tool, plant and access equipment for hire and sale in Wales. Their team of 85 highly trained staff ensure they have both the product, and knowledge, to meet the variety of customer demands. In addition, their dedicated service department offer exceptional after-sales support, responding to most customer callouts within just four hours.

Phoenix Sales Director Jason Derraven said, “We are delighted with our latest appointment as GreenMech dealers. Since becoming a Stihl main dealer, we have had no end of enquiries for these impressive and robust machines and it is great that we can now finally fulfil customer demand. The GreenMech range complements our plant hire fleet which also means we can now fully support our customers including those in the rail sector, with a complete range of de-veg equipment and woodchippers for hire or sale.”

GreenMech Sales Director, Martin Lucas added, “We are fortunate to work with a fantastic network of dealers – renowned for providing second-to-none service and support – and Phoenix Hire & Sales becomes the latest addition to that ever-growing list. We look forward to working together with them to share our extensive woodchipper range with the Arb specialists in their area.”

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Glassboys raise toast to MM60

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Glassboys raise toast to MM60: Volunteers are the lifeblood of grassroots football and you would be hard pressed to find anyone as dedicated to the cause than Ian Pilkington. In fact, he spends most of his free time tending to the pitch at Stourbridge FC’s War Memorial Ground, which he says has been hugely benefited by Limagrain’s MM60 grass seed.

Stourbridge through and through, Ian’s involvement with his beloved club, who are also known as the Glassboys, goes back a long way. When he attended his first game as a seven-year old boy, little did he know that one day he would become a director and a groundsman.

Glassboys raise toast to MM60

Glassboys raise toast to MM60

“My dad started taking me to watch the matches at Stourbridge when I seven years old and I’ve followed them ever since,” said Ian. “After the club got relegated in the year 2000 a number of us were invited to run the committee and then we evolved into a limited company and became directors.

“I started helping to run the club in a number of areas and was lending a hand to the groundsman. Unfortunately, he suffered an injury and there was no one to do the work, so I thought I’d better have a go myself.”

That was 16 years ago, and Ian has tended to the pitch ever since. Without fail, he is at the ground every Sunday morning and every spare moment he has during the week, preparing, repairing, and treating every inch of the pitch to keep it in superb condition.

“I’m a keen amateur,” he says. “I’ve found that you never stop gaining knowledge in the groundcare industry. There are always people that I can ask for help and advice and that is how I have managed to do this job for so long.

“To be honest, I could probably do with retiring, but I enjoy spending time at the club. I love being outside and working on the pitch. However, I have found that you can never do enough in this game, and I am always thinking about what else I can do to improve the pitch.”

Ian claims that he saw a remarkable development in the pitch ever since he started using Limagrain’s MM60 grass seed ten years ago after it was recommended to him by trusted supplier Agrovista Amenity.

Limagrain’s MM60 grass seed is renowned for producing an excellent playing surface. It is a 100% Ryegrass formula which is perfect for renovation and divot repair, has a high disease resistance, fantastic aesthetic qualities and offers extremely fast germination – which is boosted by the inclusion of Headstart GOLD®.

“We use MM60 for our renovation at the start of May. We share the ground with a cricket club so as soon as we finish the football season there is change over to cricket. Therefore, we need something which is very quick in establishment and we’ve found that the MM60 is ideal for that – it gives us great coverage.”

“I also tend to overseed in autumn – so I will use the MM60 on areas which need a bit of a boost, or where the fox has been or where the birds have been pecking at the surface.

Glassboys raise toast to MM60

Glassboys raise toast to MM60

“The colour is also very strong throughout the year – it’s always a vibrant green and is healthy.”

MM60 also includes Limagrain’s Ryegrass cultivar Annecy which has outstanding disease resistance particularly against Leaf Spot. The mixture’s high disease resistance coupled with its hard-wearing sward makes MM60 a seed that Ian can rely on.

“We never suffer from any disease here and I’ve found that the MM60 provides great recovery – even in bad weather conditions. Ultimately, we have consistently good results year in year out.

“I’ve been working with Mark Allen from Agrovista Amenity for more than 10 years and have been using the MM60 throughout that whole time. It’s been a fruitful partnership, which combined with use of the Limagrain seed, only benefits the club and will continue to so in the future.”

For further information, please contact Limagrain UK on 01472 371471 or visit the company’s website www.lgseeds.co.uk/mm – you can also follow the company on Twitter: @MM_Seed

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Foxes keep groundsman busy

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Foxes keep groundsman busy: A brush with the local fox population is keeping Leeds Rhinos’ groundsman Ryan Golding busy during the coronavirus crisis.

Most of Rhinos’ 150 employees have been placed on furlough, a form of paid leave, but Golding is among a handful still working – and vulpine pitch invaders are giving him plenty to do.

Foxes keep groundsman busy

Foxes keep groundsman busy

“They are a nightmare,” Golding said of the four-legged hooligans.

“They live near the railway track, in all the bushes there.

“On a night, when they are scavenging for food, they come into the stadium and they always dig in the same place on the pitch.

“They are digging bones into the pitch – I am finding bones all the time.”

The urban foxes are sometimes spotted on the terraces after games, which is one reason why cleaning crews are brought in so quickly following the final whistle.

Golding hopes fencing will deter the pests and noted: “It’s a unique problem, with it being an inner-city stadium.

“You

wouldn’t have a problem like that on an industrial site, it’s just another thing we have to deal with.”

On the other hand, the foxes do keep Emerald Headingley’s pigeons – another traditional groundsman’s enemy – at bay.

“They are stalking around the pitch on a night, waiting for the pigeons to land,” Golding reported.

“There are feathers everywhere! On a morning I have to go around picking pigeon carcasses up.

“It is like a war zone, but they don’t go near our feed, fertilizers or chemicals, which is good.”

Even without the foxes, Golding has his hands full restoring the pitch to its usual glory following unprecedented rainfall last winter.

“My assistants have been furloughed, so it’s just me,” he said.

“I am having to look after all the stadium and all of Kirkstall [Rhinos’ training base] on my own.

“It is challenging, but it’s quite enjoyable – it is taking me back to when I was younger, getting my hands dirty.

“It is very negative circumstances, but it is what it is – there’s people dying, so you can’t really moan.”

The last few months have been tough for Rhinos’ ground crew who, as well as looking after Headingley, had to cope with flooding at Kirkstall.

Golding recalled: “We had a record three months of rainfall – around 300-350 millimetres.

“That is a hell of a lot – and it wasn’t necessarily the weather, it was the timing.

“We always seemed to get downpours the night before games and the morning of.

“We weren’t really getting any luck and the game where it turned was the double-header [when Headingley staged Rhinos’ Betfred Super League opener against Hull immediately after Castleford Tigers had faced Toronto Wolfpack].

“We had a lot more rain than expected after the first game.

“I had two choices, to leave it as it is and have a slow surface, or take it on the chin and make it a fast one.”

Rhinos scored 154 points in their three home games after the loss to Hull and Golding added: “People say it looks like a beach, but it plays really well.

“That’s something I had to discuss with the management team, Rich [Agar, Rhinos’ coach] and Kev [Sinfield, director of rugby].

“I am not bothered what people say if it allows us to play fast rugby and get two points.

“That’s what we did, we applied sand quite regularly to make a fast, stable surface to enable the players to gain purchase – rather than it turning into a mudbath.”

The break has allowed Golding time to work on the pitch, but – with no clear indication when rugby will resume – he explained: “I don’t want to throw everything into recovery yet.

“It’s a bit like a finely-tuned athlete, you don’t want to hand it all the supplements and everything it requires now because it’s going to keep needing that.

“It is a sand-based surface so it drains very quickly and leaches nutrients very quickly, so I have to be careful with what I am applying.”

Life won’t get any less hectic for Golding – and his team – when the season eventually resumes.

Midweek matches are likely as Super League clubs race to make up for lost time, but Golding has no concerns over having to prepare the ground for multiple games in a short space of time.

He stressed: “I don’t see it as a bad thing.

“You get some groundsmen who are very much ‘keep off the pitch’, but I wouldn’t have a job if it wasn’t for the sport so let’s get as many games on as we can and get back to enjoying sport.”

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