Ventrac package for Leicester training centre

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Ventrac package for Leicester training centre: Leicester City Football Club, last season’s FA Cup winners, is the latest organisation to appreciate the multiple benefits of Ventrac.

Delivered by local dealer, Farols, the package included a Ventrac 4500 all-terrain compact tractor in dual-wheel configuration, a Contour mowing deck, Trencher and Power Broom and will be used to maintain their new world-class training centre of at Seagrave in Leicestershire.

Ventrac package for Leicester training centre

Ventrac package for Leicester training centre

Following a demonstration earlier this year and with input from his team, John Ledwidge, Head of Sports Turf and Grounds at the Premier League club, specified the purchase.  He is an integral part of the team that has developed the world-class training facility, where he oversees the management and development of the 180-acre site. This includes the equivalent of 14 turf pitches, synthetic pitches, a 9-hole golf course and the world’s first dedicated Sports Turf Academy.

Commenting on the latest addition to the machinery fleet, he said,

“Our owner is passionate about this football club and the community we share. He wants the very best and this facility demonstrates that commitment. We all share his vision and our aim is to make this the premier training centre in Europe.

“To be fair, we took a lot of our inspiration from the exceptional job Darren Baldwin has done at Tottenham’s facility, where we first saw the Ventrac in action during the research phase of the plan. I’d also seen it at various trade fairs and in the media. We needed a machine that was highly versatile, that can help us here improve a site that’s going to be constantly evolving over the next five years.

“The Contour deck helps us maintain the numerous banks and sloped areas around the complex, including ‘Mount Vardy’, the nickname we’ve given to a landscaped area of unused spoil from the original build. It is also used on the golf course where its articulated design prevents scalping. We’ve used the Trencher to insert drainage bands in some particularly wet areas of the golf course and the Power Broom does a great job on the pathways and carparks. It’s all about quality presentation and the versatility of the Ventrac helps us achieve the high standards demanded here.”

Chris Minton is the club’s Head Mechanic, supervising a team of three in the state-of-the-art Maintenance Facility located within the Sports Turf Academy building. Commenting on the Ventrac he said, “It’s a very good and impressive piece of kit; robustly constructed and powerful, considering it has a sub-25 hp engine. It’s simple to work on, all the belts are easily accessible as are the greasing points and the flip-up decks make our job easier when we need to access the blades or blade spindles. Definitely a very good addition to our fleet.”

John Ledwidge’s career

John began his career in 2002 as an apprentice groundsman at Coventry City where, at the tender age of 19, he was promoted to Deputy Head Groundsman. In 2008 he was appointed Assistant Grounds Manager at Aston Villa and 18 months later returned to Coventry to take up the Head Groundsman role, where he was responsible for directing pitch preparations for the London 2012 Olympics at the City of Coventry Stadium (now the Ricoh Arena).

Following the much-publicised issues at Coventry during this time, he then joined Ricoh Arena in the role of Grounds Manager and in 2014 was successful when he applied for Head Groundsman’s position at Leicester City. In 2016 he was promoted to Grounds Manager and then in July 2019 he took up his current role as Head of Sports Turf and Grounds, where he leads a team of 52 staff working across multiple sites and is actively involved in the ongoing development and investment in the class-leading sports turf surfaces at the club.

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Fourth fleet for Haydock Park

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Fourth fleet for Haydock Park: It was the fourth time last Christmas when Cheshire Turf Machinery in Stockport provided another Toro fleet on a five-year operating lease to Haydock Park Golf Club in Newton-le-Willows, Merseyside – an agreement that began in January 2006.

Terry Wharton, head greenkeeper, who has worked at Haydock Park for 41 years, overseeing a team of six full-time greenkeepers and one part-time, has remained loyal to the Toro brand, crediting excellent build quality, longevity, performance, better ergonomics, user feel, seating, controls and operation as the reasons for constant renewal of their five-year plan with Cheshire Turf Machinery.

Fourth fleet for Haydock Park

Fourth fleet for Haydock Park

Some of the machines included in the order are two Greensmaster TriFlex Hybrid 3420 mowers, a Reelmaster 3100-D cylinder mower, one Reelmaster 3575-D, a Groundsmaster 4000-D, one GreensPro 1260 greens roller, one Workman HDX utility vehicle, an Agrimetal B35 Blower and one TYM393 tractor with loader.

“It’s what we had in the past so we know how reliable they are,” says Terry. “This combination has always done a perfect job for us. With the TriFlex 3420, we have the 11-blade units for both machines but also the eight blades so we can swap over and that gives us options with the versatility of changing the units. We had the 3250s and we’ve upgraded to the new versions. The quality of the cut is really noticeable.”

Other factors weighing in on the team’s decision to acquire a brand-new fleet are having eco-friendly machines that reduce carbon emissions and consumption. Terry comments on the Greensmaster TriFlex Hybrid 3420: “We’ve seen an enormous saving on fuel. We feel that it’s going the right way as far as the energy laws are concerned. It’s good for everyone – the environment and other users – so yes, the Triflexs, especially, are very energy-smart. Fuel consumption has been significantly reduced.”

Terry and the team have maintained a solid partnership with Cheshire Turf Machinery for over 25 years, a dealer they know very well and who has never let them down.

Steve Halley, managing director at Cheshire Turf Machinery, comments: “We are thrilled that Haydock Park Golf Club has chosen to further extend its long-term relationship with Toro and Cheshire Turf Machinery. On each occasion, the club has embraced the opportunity to bring in new technology to help the continued development of the course.”

To talk to someone about Toro technology and how the Toro range would suit your course, call 01480 226800.

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Capillary Bunkers solve elk damage

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Capillary Bunkers solve elk damage: Elk getting into bunkers has resulted in damage to them at Rock Creek Cattle Company in Montana, designed by architect Tom Doak. But lining the bunkers with the Capillary Bunker system is set to solve the problem.

“When the course was built, the bunkers were lined with a textile product,” says course superintendent Rick Hathaway. “Given the location, some sort of liner was essential. The clue is in the name: the soil here is full of rocks, from pebbles to big granite boulders. With frost heaves in winter, the rocks move up through the profile, and would penetrate unlined bunkers very easily.”

Capillary Bunkers solve elk damage

Capillary Bunkers solve elk damage

But the textile liner could not cope with another problem caused by Rock Creek’s location – wildlife. “We have a large herd of resident elk, about a thousand strong. And they really like our bunkers!” says Hathaway. “Their natural position is head up, so if they are down in a bunker, they have grass at head height. So it makes eating less work for them. Especially in the fall, when they come back out of the mountains, the elk spend a disproportionate amount of time in the bunkers. And they are big, heavy animals. Their hooves inevitably cause damage to a fabric liner, and once there is a little hole, the sand gets through and the situation starts to deteriorate. It got to the point where we couldn’t manage the amount of damage that was happening. I was using six or seven guys two days a week working on liners.”

And elk are not the only wildlife that caused Hathaway sleepless nights. “We have a lot of ground squirrels here and they burrow up through the bunkers. Then the badgers – which want to eat the ground squirrels – dig down after them, and the next morning we have huge holes in our bunkers,” he explains. “A couple of years ago, I went to my greens committee chairman – a committee of one! – and he asked me what keeps me awake at night. I told him and said ‘Let’s start thinking about redoing one day’. The course is a masterpiece and the bunkers weren’t doing it any favours. From a distance, they looked pretty but from a playability point of view they weren’t as good as the rest of the course. A couple of weeks later, he called me and said ‘It’s a go’.”

“I met the Capillary Bunkers rep and started having conversations with him, and I gave a couple of local superintendents a call. I went over to one that was doing a very large renovation of the course and went out for a day and watched them install the product. That gave me confidence in how it is installed and works. Last year, my greens chairman and I made the decision that Capillary Bunkers was the right choice. We did three test bunkers, evaluated different bunker sands, and made our decision.”

The project began in April, with construction being handled by contractor Ridgetop Golf, from Seattle, and the last bunkers were lined at the beginning of June. “We typically open the golf course on May 15, and April is the month I count on getting major course work done, so for the first six weeks of construction, there were no golfers around,” says Hathaway. “When we excavated the bunkers, I had the contractor scrape an inch or two out of the subgrade to make sure we didn’t change the depth.”

Hathaway is delighted with the results. “The bunkers are spectacular,” he says. “We have these jagged faces that have eroded in the thirteen years the course has been open, and that gives them even more character. There’s a little lip and the concrete fits in there. You’d never know there was concrete there.” Hopefully, the elk will concur!

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Green Feet Week

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Green Feet Week: The Amenity Forum working with partners is promoting a week of celebration commencing September 20th.

Too often the work of those in managing amenity and sports spaces goes unnoticed and this week gives opportunity for all to learn more about what they do, really keeping Britain moving. Never has this been more highlighted than in the past year, keeping transport networks working, parks open for exercise and enjoyment and more.

Green Feet Week

Green Feet Week

In Green Feet Week, organisations and individuals working in the sector will get involved in charitable activities, large and small, and tell their stories of what they do and why what they do matters to everyone. So what is planned will be fun, raise valuable funds for charity and highlight the importance of amenity management to the lives of everyone.

John Moverley, Chairman of the Amenity Forum, said ‘’I often say it but it is so true that what happens in amenity management impacts upon every UK citizen every day with all involved seeking to create safe, sustainable amenity and sports spaces fit for purpose’

Kate Cooney from Perennial, the charity that helps people in horticulture, said ‘’We are very pleased to support this initiative and highlight the work of so many, so often not understood or recognised. It is a brilliant and fun idea with a very real and important purpose’’

Laurence Gale said ‘’This is long over-due and I am delighted both to support it and help bring it to fruition. Now all is needed is for everyone to get involved and make it a real success’’

Some further information on how to get involved is provided below and if you have further questions, we will be happy to help if we can. Throughout the period leading up to the week, we will release progress updates and stories about those getting involved and all press enquiries should again be directed to Kate at admin@amenityforum.net

How to get involved

It is really easy to take part with the overall aim of raising awareness of the sector, its brilliant work across the UK and the amazing employees that have worked tirelessly to ensure that green spaces are available and accessible to everyone; most importantly we are looking to raise some money for charities, who have really suffered over the pandemic and would appreciate some support themselves.

Here is how:-

  1. If you are an organisation, or individual, working within the sector we are looking to you to get involved with a charitable activity during the week commencing 20 September 2021.
  2. Choose the Charity you wish to support – Perennial is our partner for the event as they look after people in horticulture, but it can be a charity chosen by you or your organisation.
  3. Select what you are going to do to raise money – this might be a sponsored walk in your local park, a cake sale, football match between departments, the list is endless!
  4. Let the Amenity Forum know what you are planning and when so that we can promote your activity via our social media channels
  5. Enjoy yourselves, raise some money for charity

Promote the sector and the charitable activity within your own press outlets and via the Amenity Forum.  The sector trade press is supporting this event too, so they would love to hear from you too and feature your activities in their magazine articles about the event.

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Greenkeepers to the fore

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Greenkeepers to the fore: Episode three of Syngenta Golf’s new docuseries Changing the Business of Golf is streaming now – and follows the greenkeeping team as they transform Stanedge Golf Club.

‘On Course for Change’ features Head Greenkeeper Christian ‘CJ’ Johnson as he oversees a major course upgrade while coping with new parenthood; Greenkeeper David Morgan renovates an overgrown par-three; and we meet new recruit James Wyatt, a pilot grounded by the pandemic, as he swaps runways for fairways.

Greenkeepers to the fore

Greenkeepers to the fore

Watch now: syngentagolf.com/changing-business-golf

“Nobody really notices the role of the greenkeeper,” says James, who is seeing golf from the greenkeeper’s perspective for the first time. “Everybody comes along, they play their golf, they expect the greens to be tidy, they expect the grass to be in good condition, but you don’t tend to see all of this as a player.”

But it’s not just customers who have high expectations. New course owner and PGA Professional Fame Tate believes course conditions are critically important to the customer experience – and the long-term success of her business.

“The golf course was my number one priority for change,” explains Fame. “If we were going to get people back, it was the golf course that was going to have to change.

“I want it to look absolutely immaculate. And as much as I wanted to wave my magic wand, make grass grow and make the greens perfect and do all these things instantly, I very quickly realised things take time.”

Join Fame, CJ, James and David as the turf team transform the Stanedge course to meet the demands of a growing membership.

And catch previous episodes following Fame’s remarkable one-woman mission to change golf, transform the customer experience and make her club a friendly and inclusive community venue.

Watch all episodes, streaming now, on Syngenta Golf: syngentagolf.com/changing-business-golf

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