It’s a myth which needs exploding. Sports turf professionals do not hibernate in the winter. Nor do they spend their time playing darts or three card brag in the Mess Room. Sports turf professionals do an inordinate amount of work during the winter months, work which often makes the quality of the surfaces so much better in the main playing seasons.

So, hours may be shorter because of reduced daylight but greenkeeping and groundsmen teams work hard all year round. Turf Matters spoke to two high profile sports turf professionals to highlight just what does get done in the winter. Master Greenkeeper Greg Evans consultants to several golf courses across the UK including Ealing and Fulwell Golf Clubs, and Andy Fogarty, Head Groundsman at Headlingley and ECB Groundsman of the Year.

Greg Evans MG

Turf Matters: At what point do you identify what you will be winter programme?

Greg Evans: Late spring early summer. You are thinking ahead working with the Board what is the priority but also you get a bit or residual because you always have a winter programme but you probably only achieve about 75% of that. There are always things which are a priority and there are always things which are secondary. You have the essential work and the desirable stuff.

I laugh because we are always working to a five year plan but we always seem to be on year one of the plan – you never get to the end of it. Every year there is another priority that crops up and that can be because of environmental conditions or new Board philosophies. It is always evolving and because there is residual every year you never get 100% of what you’d hoped for finished. There is always jobs which you postpone and which then come higher up the to-do list when you do your next programme.

TM: Do you differentiate between regular work which needs done and major construction work?

GE: I always try to have two teams going. One on projects and other focusing on the golf course. I try and give people a project. Make someone Project Manager and then keep them on that project until it is completed. We might give someone else the responsibility of the next one. When you are doing a project you do want to focus 100% and get it done.

The big challenge, particularly for parkland courses, is the time of year. There is so much time you must spend clearing leaves from ditches and jobs like that. It really becomes a bit of a balancing act keeping everything going.

TM: There is a false impression that winter is the down time for sports turf professionals – the dart board gets used a little bit more often.

GE: I think the days of playing brag are gone. When I came into the industry it was definitely the down time but now expectation and intensity has gone through the roof so you’ve got to keep going. At Ealing we’ve just completed a major drainage project which we carried out all in-house, while at Fulwell we’ve have had one drainage project and we are on a tee project which has to be completed before Christmas as well as maintaining the course. There is definitely no down time.

TM: It is obviously weather dependant but do you usually have a timetable set for winter work?

GE: Your winter programme will include jobs for all weathers. For instance we’ve just come through two weeks of frost so that has meant that we’ve been able to do some tree work. If you’ve got a wet mild winter you might do out and do some drainage work. That is why you never get 100% of your objectives fulfilled. Weather will dictate so much and you will have your jobs and evolve those jobs and put the resources in to match the weather. You have to have flexibility in your approach.

TM: At what point do you feel that a project is too big for the in-house team and that you would need to bring in some contractors? Or do you try and do it in-house wherever possible?

GE: I think you plan ahead for that. Before you start the job you assess the staff’s capabilities and evaluate the machinery requirements. Before you do that there can be a combined approach too. When you are planning the project you are looking at what you’ve got and you might do 100% in-house, or you might go 90%-10% in-house-contractor. With in-house it is slower but I do feel you get quite a good job and it is more cost effective – probably less than 50% the cost of a contractor – but if you want to move on very quickly you do get a contractor to do it because you just don’t have the resources. It can depend upon what the club finances are and how ambitious they are.

TM: Do you have one winter project that you’ve done for which you’ve been particularly proud and which stands out in your mind?

GE: Not really winter, funnily enough, but summer. At Ealing we did a chipping green in the summer of 2014. We hollow cored some greens and used the cores to create the rootzone for the green and it was a great success. What I stress to the guys is that every week you’ve got to make a difference. Whether that be planting a couple of trees or taking some trees out, or some drainage work. You have your winter programme and then you micro manage that down to a weekly schedule. At members’ clubs they want to see a difference. If they go out and don’t see anything happening for a couple of weeks they are going to be on your back. So keep making a difference. That has always been my philosophy in winter.

TM: Do you think weather patterns have changed and that may have impacted on the type of winter work that gets carried through?

GE: We’ve had a hard five years. This winter has actually been very good, cold and very dry, but the five previous winters have been incredibly wet which highlighted the drainage issues. Ealing Golf Club pre-five years ago we were out renovating bunkers but the last five years we’ve basically just been laying pipe. Conversely when you get a hot and dry summer it will highlight any deficiencies in your irrigation system. Weather will show the weakness of the golf course whether it be drainage, irrigation, turf quality and bring it to the forefront.

TM: Has machinery development in recent years assisted with winter programme work?

GE: Yes. You’re buying trenchers, you’re buying excavators, you’re buying lasers, not just cutting equipment. If you are going to do work in-house you have got to have the machinery to do it and often the hardest thing is to hire in the specialist kit – even a single thing like a tilting bucket for an excavator. You just can’t get them really. But this comes back to pre-planning and talking to your Board, getting your business plan right. You’ve got to make sure you’ve got the budget to do it and the machinery to do it too.

TM: What mistakes do you see being made with winter programme work?

GE: If the planning is not quite right they go into a job then don’t have the budget to finish so there are short cuts taken. Little things like not putting drainage or irrigation into a tee or shallowing off the rootzone just to save a thousand pounds. It will bite them back. You do see that sort of thing a lot but it is getting better.

I do believe that contractors have lifted construction jobs to a new level. This has meant that the in-house stuff has improved. Really good companies doing fantastic work and you think we can do that too and that is the standard that is being set. When you are working on an area you are boarding in and boarding out to avoid mess.

Personally I do love construction work. I get quite excited about it, I just love the challenges that it sets. I also find drainage incredibly interesting. You spend huge amounts of money on it but the members don’t ever get to see it. You get an issue with drainage and a member might talk about the wet fairways and keep on mentioning it. So you go in and solve the problem and you never get a congratulations or thanks from them – they just move on to another problem. Silence is quite a good thing. If they are not talking about an issue you’ve obviously done quite a good job. Drainage is costly, very labour intensive, dirty work and you never get any thanks!

Andy Fogarty

Turf Matters: How wide is the window you have to carry out your winter programme work?

Andy Fogarty: We don’t have much time because we have a lot of 20twenty cricket nowadays which reduced the available time and obviously a lot of Championship cricket as well. Our last fixture is on the 28th of September so we try to get all our work carried out by the second week in October simply because we don’t know what the weather is going to do. This year it has been really mild and you can grow grass but in the past years we’ve had a nightmare at the end of the season – bypassing autumn and straight into winter. So we get it done as early as possible but at the same time ensuring that we do it right. It is a very important time of the year and we make the most of it. We can be here up to nine o’clock in the evening still doing our reseeding work.

TM: What are or will be your winter projects over the next few years?

AF: We have four projects lined up for the next four years, starting this year. We’ve built a brand new net area which stretches from the edge of the cricket square to the edge of the Western Side. We’ve already got eight nets either side of the First Class pitches on the square and this new facility will give us another 10.

Work was carried out in the last week in September. The area was excavated, the same soil as used for the cricket square was brought in. We dug out to a depth of 15 inches, added a layer of stone then put the soil on top of that and reseeded and it sits nicely proud above the outfield. It is like a brand new square.

Next year, at the end of 2017 season, we will do exactly the same thing on the edge of the Eastern side which takes it more or less to the boundary. So in theory the square will go from one side of the boundary to the other side of the boundary, with another 10 nets on that.

We do have two indoor facilities at Headingley. One under the East Stand there are four nets on indoor lanes and we have an indoor school which is across St Michael’s Lane which is adjacent to the Cricket Ground.

In 2018 the outfield will be Koroed. We installed the outfield in 2006, and we have a few areas which require some work – a few dips which we need to address. Ideally I’d have Koroed it a little bit earlier and do it once every four or five years and then completely reseed again. It is similar to a football pitch and in an ideal world it should be done at least every two years.

TM: What’s the split between work in-house and that with contractors and what is the deciding factor?

AF: Anything which involves heavy plant we do tend to get contractors involved. Take the excavation for these new nets, we have contractors there because it involved excavating 250 tonne of soil and then replacing it. It was easier to get a contractor in to do this for us.

TM: What’s the biggest winter project you’ve undertaken at Headingley?

AF: Apart from the outfield, which was done by a contractor anyway, we had a training ground which we installed back in 2002 which was a net area with a 30 yard run up and floodlit, so that was one of the bigger things which we’ve done here.

TM: How have you found that machinery has improved and helped your cause over recent years?

AF: There is new equipment being developed year in, year out, and not just for cricket,for football, tennis, golf, rugby you name it. It makes our life 10 times, 100 times easier. When I first started in 1982 mopping up equipment like waterhogs didn’t exist. We didn’t have anything like that the water was just tipped from sheet to sheet until we got to the boundary rope. The tractors, the attachments spikers, scarifiers etc have all been updated and are fantastic pieces of equipment and they make our lives and our jobs 10 times easier.

TM: Have your found weather patterns changing in recent times?

AF: The weather has certainly been much more unpredictable. Years ago the winter almost started on the first day of November. You’d get frost and a little bit of snow and that carried on through December, to January and February time and then we might have some good weather in March. So the weather must have changed because it is so unpredictable now. Even in the summer time, when you get the downpours, it’s not just rain it is torrential.

We’ve seen those poor villages and towns being flooded and I can’t remember this sort of thing 30 years ago.

TM: Do you view your winter work with the same pride as you do the summer work when the matches are being played, or do you see it as two sides of the same coin?

AF: They are both just as important as the other. The work which is carried out in the winter time sets you up for the season ahead providing it is carried out properly and provided that you look after your pitches and maintain them once your grasses are established. You take care you take an eye on them for diseases. It is really important to help with preparing pitches in the summer time.

We look at the development of the all-purpose, multi-use stadium, and how they have become part of the fabric of modern day society.

The vast majority of stadiums in this country were built for football clubs to enable spectators to watch the country’s most popular game. The football calendar wasn’t quite so crowded in days gone by and most matches were played on Saturday at 3pm with the odd cup replay, or European tie for those few clubs involved, slotted into a Wednesday evening.

What that meant was the invariably the biggest stadiums in the country were only really used every other Saturday and, then, only during the football season which ran from August to May. Big stadiums require big upkeep and that requires resources which require funding and so the ability to use stadiums more than for just the 25 times a year, became imperative.

And so the multi-use stadium was born and we could all enjoy traveling to our favourite stadiums (or even those of our deadliest footballing rivals) to watch a diverse range of events.

Wembley Stadium was one of the early adopters of such a policy and there are two events which stand head and shoulders above others in highlighting how well Wembley, in particular, and multiuse stadia in general can be utilised.

In 1963 Wembley was the venue for a boxing match between the great British hope, Henry Cooper, and the American superstar, Cassius Clay – soon to become Mohammad Ali in front of 35,000 fans. Henry downed Clay with a thunderbolt left hook and, many say that it was only a controversial delay in the start of the next round to repair a split glove (rumoured to have been done deliberately by his corner) which bought Clay time to recover his senses.

The other iconic “alternative” event at Wembley was Live Aid, the charity concert in 1985, which saw all the music superstars of the time performing, either at Wembley or simultaneously in Philadelphia in the States, to raise money and awareness for the Ethiopian famine.

Organised by Bob Geldoff, acts including Queen, U2, Phil Collins, David Bowie, Paul McCartney and The Who. It was the first of what has become many charity inspired music events all over the world which have raised millions for diverse causes.

Without Wembley there is a fair chance that it may have not been possible to stage an event – at such short notice – and that the large scale charity concert concept may not have been given such a wonderful start.

Since then stadiums have been the option of choice for many concerts and George Michael, Bon Jovi, Madonna, Coldplay, Oasis, Take That, Ed Sheeran and AC/DC, as well as the charity Concert for Diana and Live Earth events, have graced Wembley while similar events and big names have become regular attractions at national stadia and club stadia up and down the country.

On a sporting front boxing has been joined by as diverse pursuits as American Football; Baseball; Speedway; Greyhound Racing; WWF Wrestling Formula 1 – turning Wembley into a short, exciting racing circuit Race of Champions would you believe Ski Jumping? While not forgetting of course, perhaps the most diverse use of Wembley of all time – Evil Knievel’s attempt to jump over 13 London Buses in 1975

Stadiums are now built with multi-use in mind and, to maximise the number of days a stadium is in use, is a key element of balancing vast budgets at the end of the year. The Millennium Stadium – now Principality Stadium –in Cardiff opened in 1999 and is another example of a stadium built to ensure that it doesn’t sit idle for most of the time.

In addition to being the National Stadium for both the Wales football and rugby teams, its retractable roof gives added adaptability which has been embraced by so many different events and disciplines.

More recently the Olympic Park has also shown it genuine adaptability and has now just begun its new life as home to West Ham United. While the Hammers’ fans may feel they are a little further away from the action than at their beloved Upton Park, because of the famous athletics track, the upside is a large capacity, state-of-the-art stadium the like of which the Gold brothers and Dame Karen Brady could not have dreamt of funding from scratch.

From day one the Olympic Park showed its versatility with the mind blowing 2012 Opening Ceremony, complete with giant chimney stacks and parachuting monarchs, preparing the way for Usain Bolt and his colleagues to showcase their sporting prowess to the world. With spectator seats equipped with flashing lights a stadium is now expected to play a full interactive role in proceedings and the Olympic Park did that.

It has since gone on to host the annual Anniversary Games, international football matches; hosting games in the Rugby World Cup on 2015 and has added immensely to London’s stable of outstanding multi-use sporting venues, to which you can add Twickenham, and the top football venues in the city at Arsenal, Chelsea, Tottenham, not to mention those slightly further afield in the shape of the Madejski Stadium in Reading and Stadium MK in Milton Keynes – new modern, sensibly sized stadiums.

Around the country new stadiums are being built of existing ones adapted to ensure that they are kept busy all year round and if it is not for events on the playing area it is in lavish new corporate entertainment facilities overlooking the playing surface. Companies can hold seminars and conferences knowing that the attraction of a Stadium Tour will bring in the normally reticent client.

Wedding receptions are also on the increase with supporter couples keen to mark their nuptuals with never to be forgotten pictures featuring the club logo and pitch as a backdrop.

Indeed the proportion of top flight football clubs in England to have moved to new stadia since the Taylor Report proposed all seater stadiums following the Hillsborough Disaster in 1995, given the odd change as a result of promotion and relegation, is around 50%

Every part of the county is now catered for and the names, if not exactly tripping off the tongue, becoming more and more familiar to us. The Riverside Stadium; The Ricoh Arena; The Amex Stadium; the Macron Stadium; the Vitality Stadium; the Ipro Stadium; the Keepmoat Stadium; the KC Stadium’ the King Power Stadium; the Ethiad Stadium; the Kassam Stadium; St Mary’s Stadium; the Britannia Stadium; the Stadium of Light and the DW Stadium are just a few, and all in England. Add to that those in other parts of the UK – Murrayfield, in Edinburgh, to name but one – and add in the cricket grounds which are now authentic options for rock concerts and, in the case of Lords, wonderful archery venues, and you have a plethora of multi-use venues which didn’t exist 20 years ago (excluding Lords, of course!).

But the elephant in the room is always that major events outside of the core use of the stadium can impact on the playing surface and it is the job of the Head Groundsman or Facilities Manager to avoid the headlines, or pundit’s critique, when the quality of the pitch for the next home game is not what they have come to expect. It says much for the fact that despite the increase in usage of pitches for alternative sporting, and entertainment events, the quality of pitches in the UK has continued to improve and the skill of the professionals tasked with ensuring top quality playing conditions remain in place all of the time.

Pitch lighting; the emergence of the DESSO Grassmaster pitch; the ability to relay an entire pitch, and have it playable in weeks rather than months and new pitch covering methods have all become reality in recent history, but without the highly developed skills of those who have to implement the new techniques we would still be facing issues.

So let us applaud the fact that just a short time after 30,000 Bruce Springsteen fans were “Dancing in the Dark” on the Etihad pitch earlier this year, that Sergio Aguero could very easily have been finishing off a sweeping Manchester City move to send the light blue fans into raptures.