Earlestown Athletic look to the future

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Earlestown Athletic look to the future: Grassroots football cub, Earlestown Athletic JFC, has ensured the long-term quality and improvement of their four-pitch site, The Hive, with a New Holland Boomer 35 Tractor, Trimax Striker Mower and Sisis Quadraplay from Campey Turf Care Systems.

The Warrington based club has 21 teams from the ages of three to under-17 level, with a vast majority of games played at The Hive. The development of the five-acre site on what was the former St Aelred’s Catholic School field, which over the years was left derelict took place four years ago with the help of funding from The Football Foundation, Corby Environmental and Sport England.

Earlestown Athletic look to the future

Earlestown Athletic look to the future

With that money and a 99-year lease from the council, the club renovated the ground, installed drainage, a modular building with toilets, a kitchen and a car park. To this point, The Hive has become one of the best football facilities in the area, and it is the aim of Chairman, Carl Hollingsworth, that this can be improved thanks to the help of Campey Product Specialist, Ethan Yates, and their new machinery.

“I’ve been with the club for nearly nine years now, mainly as a coach, but it’s only been in the last year and a half since becoming Chairman that I’ve seen a lot more happening behind the scenes than I ever had before,” Carl explains. “It’s been a bit of an eye-opener, with plenty of ups and downs, but thankfully we have a fantastic committee who put the Club first. Between myself, Dave Edwards our Secretary, and rest of the Committee we’ve steered the club through some pretty tough times with the COVID-19 lockdown and the premature ending of last season. Credit also must go to our players families who have supported us throughout.

“During this summer we applied for and received the Pitch Improvement Grant to help us do the maintenance on the fields, and the latest money is from that programme again, but on the equipment side of things and without them we’d be up the creek without a paddle basically, I can’t thank The Football Foundation enough.”

“Our old mower kept breaking down and about two months ago the wheel fell off so we had to source new bolts and a new a wheel head, but the bolts weren’t right, so it fell off again and it was sat in the middle of a field. That really prompted us to push even more for the new equipment.

“Once we realised we could get it, and raise the money we needed, Campey were brilliant in bringing a mower to demonstrate, and Ethan especially has been great. He’s been brilliant in taking my phone calls after work as we went through the process, and on the day, he dropped the machine off, he spent hours going through it with the coaches and me.

“It’s going to get more use because more coaches are willing to use it whereas the old one it was a bit of a no-go area for some of them because they were a bit intimidated by it. Whereas this is brand-new equipment, and they want to use it, which is good because it takes the pressure off me.”

The quality of The Hive has been recognised over the last two seasons with the award of the Warrington Junior Football League Presidents Cup and Alf Holt Cup finals, with the third round of finals also due to be played on the site unfortunately cancelled due to COVID-19.

Whether your club is striving to maintain or improve their pitch quality, Campey can assist you with advice on machinery and provide a full and comprehensive service of consultation and back-up to ensure you get the machinery you need to make a difference for your club.

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GreenBest appoint Connor Burford

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GreenBest appoint Connor Burford: The Somerset-based fertiliser company GreenBest team has expanded with the appointment of Connor Burford as Product Technologist. 

Connor joins GreenBest having worked in Devon after finishing his degree in Biological Sciences at the University of Plymouth. Whilst at university Connor worked in a variety of different scientific settings as a research assistant, including ecotoxicology.

GreenBest appoint Connor Burford

GreenBest appoint Connor Burford

With this new appointment GreenBest is strengthening their Quality Control process and introducing new systems to ensure optimum productivity across all ranges. Connor joins GreenBest at a stage of rapid growth in the company, having recently installed an onsite coating plant, and opened a new, secondary, site.

Connor explained “I’ve really enjoyed working at Greenbest thus far; the company has an impeccably heritage and reputation that it’s been an enjoyable challenge to find ways to refine and build on this.”

James Whittick, Sales & Marketing Director at GreenBest added “This is a really exciting time for GreenBest as we expand our product ranges and bring on new people to help with this. Connor has already proved himself an asset to the company, with a wealth of new ideas and practises to help take GreenBest further. We look forward to the future and the development that will bring.”

GreenBest also owns the Velvit and SmartLawn ranges for professional turf care and lawncare respectively.

For more information on GreenBest or any of its subsidiaries please email sales@greenbest.co.uk

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Stronger sward for Gloucester Rugby

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Stronger sward for Gloucester Rugby: Gloucester Rugby Head Groundsman, Stuart Lambert, believes that the use of Attraxor® plant growth regulator (PGR), has helped him to achieve a stronger sward while simultaneously reducing the amount of Poa annua.

Stuart started at Gloucester Rugby in August 2018 and admits to learning and adapting to the way the pitch plays every single day. This means that he must be flexible in his maintenance strategy and be open to new products which could make a difference to the pitch at the Kingsholm Stadium.

Stronger sward for Gloucester Rugby

Stronger sward for Gloucester Rugby

He came across such a product at BTME 2020 in the form of Attraxor® plant growth regulator (PGR). In further researching the product, he found that it came highly recommended by Mark Allen from Agrovista Amenity and Adam King, Head Groundsman at Oxford United Football Club.

“Attraxor® appealed to me because PGR’s are a significant part of my overall maintenance strategy to improve the turf and control Poa annua,” said Stuart. “2020 was a particularly challenging year for Poa so I was keen to see what the product could offer. Speaking to Mark and Adam gave me the confidence to try it and the results have been far better than expected.”

Stuart claims that a lack of sunlight to the pitch led to an increase in Poa: “In the winter months almost the whole pitch is in shade because the stand is so high,” he said. “This has been a big factor for the care programme I have chosen to adopt. Maintaining grass coverage is a constant concern in the lower light months and the thinning grass often gives way to Poa annua in the spring which takes hold. It’s a tricky combination to contend with.

The lack of light, winter thinning and then the Poa means the turf is high maintenance. Couple this with the winter months being in heavy use and it means we are regularly out with pitch lights to encourage growth in match torn areas.”

After carrying out a mini renovation in June last year, Stuart applied 1.1 kg/ha of Attraxor® with 20kg of 46-0-0 nitrogen fertiliser. Attraxor® contains prohexadione-calcium, a new active ingredient that regulates growth and also limits the spread of Poa annua by reducing seed-head production.

“It visibly weakened the Poa,” said Stuart. “It looked stressed but the rye around it looked good. It turned the seed heads brown.”

Following the first application Stuart is now confident that Attraxor® will form an important part of his overall maintenance plan. “It is good to have a product that strengthens the sward and improves density whilst weakening the Poa. I definitely intend on applying it again,” he concluded.

For more information about Agrovista Amenity, visit www.agrovista.co.uk/amenity

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Bury Council’s environmentally friendly weed control

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Bury Council’s environmentally friendly weed control: A new ’green’ way of killing weeds with hot water rather than glyphosate has been ordered by Bury Council.

The Multevo Hot Water Weed System uses boiling water rather than traditional herbicides to tackle weeds and can also be used for chemical-free high-pressure cleaning to remove grime, gum, graffiti and general sanitation of street furniture.

Bury Council's environmentally friendly weed control

Bury Council’s environmentally friendly weed control

Councillor Alan Quinn, cabinet member for the environment, said: “Many people have expressed concerns about the council using chemicals to tackle weeds, especially around schools and play areas, and want to see chemical-free alternatives used instead.

“I share their concerns, and have therefore ordered this new vehicle as part of our review into the use of herbicides and pesticides. It will enable us to keep the borough tidier in a much greener way.

“The machine can also be used to remove chewing gum and mosses and algae from surfaces so can also keep our town centres looking nicer.

“This is another part of Bury’s climate change commitment, alongside decarbonising council vehicles as much as possible and reducing energy use.”

Multevo are the sole UK supplier of Waterkracht’s range of hot water weed control equipment who have been manufacturing this type of equipment since the early 1990’s.

The equipment requires absolutely no additives to kill weeds and works by delivering an efficient low-pressure treatment accurately at 98°C to kill the cellular structure of the root using Waterkracht’s Boiling Hot water Technique®.

“We’re really pleased to see yet another council opt for our environmentally friendly weed control solution and wish them every success. We understand the pressures some councils are facing when it comes to chemicals and are confident that we can provide them with a cost effective and sustainable solution which will still provide productive outputs.” – Josh Sweeney, Director of Marketing & Growth.

Having recently hosted a successful live virtual demonstration of the equipment, Multevo are inviting those organisations looking to minimise the use of chemicals to get in touch to discuss trial hire or demo opportunities.

info@multevo.co.uk | 01254 703 212 | www.multevo.co.uk

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/multevoltd

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/multevo

Twitter: @Multevo

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Combination ticks all the boxes for Eastleigh

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Combination ticks all the boxes for Eastleigh: Managing a high wear pitch, on a relatively tight budget is probably a story with which most non and lower league club grounds managers can relate.

For Eastleigh FC Head Groundsman Dan Barnes, the task is made slightly easier by getting the right seed in the ground first and foremost – and for this, he turns to Johnsons J Premier Pitch. Along with delivering superior wear tolerance, its resistance to disease has meant Dan has only applied fungicide once in the last four years.

Combination ticks all the boxes for Eastleigh

Combination ticks all the boxes for Eastleigh

Eastleigh FC moved to their home at the Silverlake Stadium in the 1950’s and limited investment since then has resulted in a pitch that struggles with drainage and requires thoughtful management – a challenge Dan picked up four years ago, despite having no previous Groundsmanship experience! “In those first few months I spent a lot of time undertaking qualifications and networking with other groundsmen as I sought to build a bank of suppliers” explains Dan, who is assisted only by a team of volunteers. “When it came to seed, after I tried Johnsons J Premier Pitch mixture, I’ve never wanted to use anything else.”

“Despite our challenging ground conditions, this mixture delivers on all of the key performance characteristics – it’s hard-wearing, gives us fantastic visual merit and has demonstrated fantastic tolerance to disease. In four years, we’ve had just one Fusarium outbreak which we could attribute to the use of pitch covers.” Due to budget constraints, Dan has to be creative when it comes to seeding, usually applying 50g per m2 during summer renovations and then overseeding at 25-30g per m2 in the autumn and again in the spring to see them through to the end of the season.

Last winter, Dan supplemented Premier Pitch with Johnsons J 4Turf to benefit from the lower temperature germination of DLF’s tetraploid ryegrass. “This gave the pitch a real boost through the winter and undoubtedly helped us get through a fixture pile-up we had in February 2021 where we hosted five games in a 19-day period. The increased root length we get with the J 4Turf mixture provides great additional strength and, along with J Premier Pitch, recovers brilliantly.”

“There is nothing more satisfying than being proud of the surface you present” Dan concludes. “This combination of Johnsons mixtures gives us a pitch that is always fit and ready for play which, in turn, satisfies the following of fans we are really fortunate to have here at the club.”

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