Tag Archive for: Pitch

Exmouth Pitch In Good Shape

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Exmouth Pitch In Good Shape: The football ‘close-season’ is almost at an end as the ‘pre-season’ edges ever closer. Most football teams enjoy an entire month of June recharging batteries before returning in early July for the rigours of pre-season training.

However, the ‘close-season’ is not a period of rest for everyone involved with football clubs.

One group of club folk who are particularly busy are those charged with looking after the playing surface and, at Exmouth Town that responsibility lies with head groundsman John Dibsdall who is also the club president.

The work that ‘Dibs’, as he is more affectionately known, has undertaken since the last ball of the 2018/19 campaign was kicked, is there for all to see with the Southern Road playing surface currently looking at its pristine best.

It’s clear that, while the June rain has not been to everyone’s pleasure, it has certainly helped in the grass growth at Southern Road as our pictures show.

There is one change to the Town pre-season schedule with news that the warm-up game with Taunton Town, set for Tuesday, July 9 has been cancelled and efforts are being made to set up an alternative match for Kevin Hill’s team.

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Groundsman ‘Tweaks’ Pitch Plans

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Groundsman ‘Tweaks’ Pitch Plans: Fleetwood Town’s head groundsman Nick Hyndman has revealed that feedback from keeper Alex Cairns has resulted in a different approach to relaying the Highbury pitch this summer.

Hyndman is hopeful the pitch will be in “brilliant” condition by the time Premier League side Burnley arrive for a friendly on July 23.

 

The groundstaff’s normal summer schedule was altered last year, when Highbury staged Alfie Boe’s Homecoming concert in June and all Town’s pre-season fixtures were away.

This year Town will host the Clarets and Preston in their final warm-up games and Hyndman told the club website how preparations are going ahead of the players’ return to the revamped Poolfoot Farm pitches for training on June 26.

He said: “We are under tight deadlines to produce a surface, so we are trying to make it grow as quick as possible. It’s all guns blazing to get the pitches ready.

“We have the stadium but ultimately we have everything that is happening at the training ground, and that is where we are day-to-day.

“It’s a very similar process to what we do each year, even though there have been some slight tweaks due to how we feel the pitch performed.

“We stripped the turf and added over 150 tonnes of new material. We’ve added synthetic goalmouths – called hybrid carpets – like last season. We got some feedback from the keepers that they weren’t getting stability throughout the season.

“The hybrid carpet almost looks like astroturf. It’s five per cent artificial fibres. Your seeds and grass grow into the fibres to create a strong rooting system that gives instant stability.

“We’ve been able to get the surface up earlier than last season, so our main aim is to get it ready for Burnley and keep it up for the game against Preston North End on July 27.

“I’m fully confident that we have more than enough time to present a brilliant surface for both games.”

As for Poolfoot, he added: “We are just over two weeks from seed now and we’ve had a brilliant uptake.

“The weather has been brilliant for it – a mix of sun and rain – which has enabled us to get on with it earlier this year.

“We were cutting it after 10 days, which I would say is the best I’ve ever seen it.

“The contractors have done a really good job. My guys have been keen to get on there to start doing what we need to do to get it ready for the start of the season.

“We normally need eight weeks to grow a pitch. Each year the players seem to be coming back earlier and earlier, which has an effect on us.

“They go on the development pitches, which we take up early so the first team can come straight back on to the grass.”

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Dover’s Pitch Makeover

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Dover’s Pitch Makeover: The new football season might be two months away but preparations have already started on Crabble’s turf ahead of Dover’s 2019/20 National League campaign.

Following the installation of the fibre sand pitch last year, Head Groundsman Sid Fletcher is now performing the necessary maintenance work to ensure the ground is in top condition ahead of Whites’ first pre-season match at Crabble, against Maidstone United on Tuesday 16th July.

“It was a big job last year,” said Sid, “however, it’s a smaller in-house renovation this summer and we have a lot more time to get the pitch how we want it.

“There were a few bald spots towards the end of last season, so we have overseeded and implemented the fertilising regime to allow the grass to grow all over the pitch.

“The plastic fibres in the sand will give the turf the necessary strength needed to withstand the rigours of a football season and I can’t wait to see the finished product.

“My aim is for it to look the same at the end of the season as it will at the start!”

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New Pitch Investment Pays Off

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New Pitch Investment Pays Off: For years the quality of the Memorial Stadium pitch was criticised by managers both home and away as it cut up badly.

Former Gas manager Darrell Clarke used to lambaste it at regular intervals.

Which makes today’s announcement that Bristol Rovers have been named Grounds Team of the Season in League One all the more significant.

At this point last season the club had already ripped up the turf at the Memorial Stadium to correct a problem with the incorrect sand laid under the grass and lay a new fibre pitch.

What the fibre does is reinforce the turf meaning it does not come up in clumps.

Clarke, who departed as manager at the Gas in December, revealed over the summer that groundsman Daryle Sullivan had even slept at the stadium during the summer to ensure the pitch developed perfectly.

Anyone who has visited to Mem this season will no doubt have noticed the vast improvement to the playing surface.

The awards recognise the importance of the quality of pitches for professional football and acknowledge the clubs and their ground staff who consistently produce the best playing surfaces in the EFL.

Bristol Rovers’ ground staff take top honours for the excellent surface at the Memorial Stadium in League One with Doncaster Rovers, Sunderland and Wycombe Wanderers highly commended.

In the Championship, Swansea City won the award for producing a perfect pitch at the Liberty Stadium this season. Aston Villa and Middlesbrough are both highly commended.

The award for Grounds Team of the Season in League Two this year goes to Swindon Town, while the ground staff of Carlisle United and MK Dons are highly commended.

The EFL’s Grounds Team of the Season Awards are determined initially using marks from referees and away managers for each Sky Bet EFL game and are then followed by detailed pitch inspections and a review of management operations.

These visits were carried out by Dr Stephen Baker, Head of Sports Surface Technology at the Sports Turf Research Institute (STRI).

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Vandals Damage Football Pitch

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Vandals Damage Football Pitch: Junior footballers from Spalding were left “devastated and disheartened” after vandals wrecked their pitch and equipment on Friday night.

Players and officials from Spalding United Youth Football Club arrived for their games in West Pinchbeck, only to find that a pitch had been vandalised and a container storing equipment used by the club had been broken into.

A pitch marker and rope used by the club were stolen and dumped in a ditch full of water, but not before the marker had been used to leave graffiti on the pitch itself and on Leaves Lake Drove where the playing field is located.

The vandals struck sometime between Thursday night, when Spalding United’s junior players had their last training session, and about 9am on Saturday morning.

Club secretary Chiara Lyon said: “My colleague on our committee received a call early on Saturday morning with a message that the pitch we play on in West Pinchbeck had been vandalised and the equipment in which we store all our equipment had been stolen.

“I drove down to Leaves Lake Drove at 9am on Saturday, only to find that some nice pictures had been drawn on the pitch and the container had been broken into.

“A pitch marker used to paint the lines on the pitches had been taken out of the container and used on the pitch before it was thrown into a dyke.

“There was paint all over the road and some “Respect” barriers to keep spectators off the pitch had been thrown into the dyke as well.

“I was devastated as some of the children had travelled from quite a distance away and we had to explain to them that their game go ahead as the police wanted to have a look at what had happened.”

Among the youngsters affected were a team from Newmarket, who had made a 127-mile round trip to play against one of the Spalding United junior teams.

Chiara said: “We had a team training session at Leaves Lake Drove on Thursday evening, but we don’t use the pitch on Fridays.

“There were two games scheduled on Saturday which had to be called off but once the police had finished, myself and some of the other committee members spent several hours cleaning the pitch.

“It wasn’t the nicest of feelings and it wasn’t the call I expected on Saturday morning when I was supposed to have been taking my youngster to a match.

“We’ve managed to get the pitch playable again, after it took us six hours to tidy things up.

“But it was very disheartening to see what happened because it affects the children.”

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