Tag Archive for: sport

Notts Sport Unveils CocoTurf Cricket

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Notts Sport Unveils CocoTurf Cricket: Notts Sport, one of the UK’s most established innovators in sports and play surfacing, has announced the launch of CocoTurf Cricket, the world’s first 100% natural, plastic-free artificial cricket surface. Designed from the ground up using natural materials, CocoTurf Cricket represents a major step forward in sustainable facility development for cricket at all levels of the game.

CocoTurf Cricket builds on Notts Sport’s pioneering CocoTurf® technology and has been specifically re-engineered to meet the demands of cricket performance. The surface is constructed entirely from natural coconut fibres, jute backing, and certified natural latex, creating a high-performance wicket system with zero plastics, zero microplastics, and zero PFAS. This makes it the first artificial cricket surface of its kind worldwide and a significant milestone in reducing environmental impact in sport.

Notts Sport Unveils CocoTurf Cricket

Notts Sport Unveils CocoTurf Cricket

The first installation of CocoTurf Cricket has already taken place at the iconic Lord’s Cricket Ground, providing a real-world example of how elite facilities are beginning to embrace natural, plastic-free alternatives. The surface has undergone full cricket performance testing, including a Ball Pitch Impact Assessment, which confirmed the system’s consistent bounce, realistic pace and long-term durability comparable to professionally prepared non-turf wickets. An ECB application is currently in process, marking an important step toward official recognition and future adoption by clubs, schools, county boards and national programmes.

CocoTurf Cricket has been developed to support the growing need for environmentally responsible solutions within the sport. With concerns increasing around microplastic shedding, PFAS contamination and the environmental cost of synthetic materials, CocoTurf Cricket offers a future-proofed alternative that aligns with the sport’s sustainability objectives. The system is Oeko-Tex certified, 100% recyclable, features a dense pile weight of 1,300 g/m², and achieves an exceptional water infiltration rate of 15,166 mm/hr, providing reliable use throughout the year.

Each square metre of CocoTurf Cricket uses fibres from 6.5 coconuts, meaning approximately 585 coconuts contribute to a single-lane match facility. This approach transforms natural by-products into high-performance surfacing technology and reduces dependence on petrochemical-based materials. The product is protected under International Patent Application No. PCT/GB2024/050422 (pending).

Duncan Bennett, CEO of Notts Sport, said:

“CocoTurf Cricket is a genuine breakthrough for cricket facilities. For the first time, the sport has access to an artificial surface that performs like a professionally prepared pitch but is made entirely from natural materials. This is a major step toward eliminating plastics from non-turf systems and creating facilities that protect both players and the environment.”

Adam Walker, Technical Manager at Notts Sport, added:

“We engineered CocoTurf Cricket with players in mind, but with absolute commitment to sustainability. This surface shows that you no longer have to choose between performance and environmental responsibility — you can have both.”

With more than 40 years of experience delivering cricket surfaces across the UK and worldwide, Notts Sport continues to lead innovation in the industry, offering solutions that support the future of the game.

For more information, visit: www.cocoturf.co.uk/cricket-surfacing

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Haileybury Grounds Manager Praises MM Tetra Sport

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Haileybury Grounds Manager Praises MM Tetra Sport: Andy Richards, Grounds Manager at Haileybury, one of England’s leading independent schools, has hailed MM Tetra Sport for setting a new standard in maintaining the school’s extensive sports pitches.

Praising its exceptional performance, Andy highlighted how the innovative seed mixture has delivered outstanding results on high-use pitches, transforming both their resilience and his team’s workload.

Haileybury Grounds Manager Praises MM Tetra Sport

Haileybury Grounds Manager Praises MM Tetra Sport

Nestled in 500 acres of stunning Hertfordshire countryside, Haileybury is one of England’s leading independent co-educational schools. Known for its academic excellence and vibrant co-curricular programme, Haileybury boasts national champions in girls’ hockey, top-tier cricket teams, and competitive rugby and football squads.

Maintaining the school’s extensive sports facilities, which include approximately 180 pitches and courts, is no small feat, but Grounds Manager Andy Richards thrives on the challenge.

Now in his sixth year at Haileybury, Andy oversees the site with a team of 11 staff. “It’s a large site, and the co-curricular side is massive—not just sport but activities like mountain biking and horse riding,” he explains. “The sports side is huge, and we’re constantly working to maintain and improve the pitches to meet high standards.”

Andy was drawn to the role by the potential he saw at Haileybury. “It’s a big school and was a bit of a sleeping giant when I started. It wasn’t in the best condition, but they wanted to improve it and make it one of the best schools in the country. I liked the challenge—it ticked a lot of boxes for me.”

Having relied on MM50 and MM60 seed mixtures for years, Andy recently turned his attention to MM Tetra Sport, a winter sports overseeding mixture treated with Headstart® GOLD – a performance-enhancing grass seed coating. Impressed by tetraploid ryegrass trial results he’d seen, Andy decided to test MM Tetra Sport on one of Haileybury’s high-use rugby training pitches.

“What I’d heard about Tetra Sport was that it’s harder wearing and requires less water, which was ideal for us given the site conditions,” Andy says.

Its unique tetraploid ryegrass composition offers several advantages:

  • Rapid establishment and germination, even in challenging conditions.
  • Reduced water requirements, promoting deep rooting.
  • High wear tolerance, perfect for high-use pitches.
  • Outstanding disease resistance and excellent colour year-round.

The results were astounding. “We sowed Tetra Sport in three directions, then did a fourth pass after two weeks. The germination was really quick—helped by a rainstorm—but even when the weather turned dry, we didn’t need to water it as soon as we would have with traditional ryegrass.”

For Andy, the reduced need for irrigation was transformative. “Watering a pitch here takes 8 hours, with 290 metres of hose to set up. With Tetra Sport, we held off watering for 10-12 days longer than usual, which was unbelievable.”

After four weeks of growing in, the pitch was ready for its first training session. “It held together really well,” Andy notes. “The pitch next to it, which isn’t Tetra Sport, is like chalk and cheese. That pitch gets about 2 hours of use a week, while the Tetra Sport pitch averages 6 hours, and you’d think it was the other way around. The coverage is fantastic, the colour is natural and vibrant, and it’s incredibly resilient.”

Andy has also noticed other benefits. “We’ve had no disease on the Tetra Sport pitch, whereas other pitches have had issues like fusarium. It’s ticked every box we could have hoped for.”

Andy is so impressed with MM Tetra Sport that he plans to use it across the entire site next year. “I’m even going to experiment with it on a cricket wicket,” he says. “It shows how much seed breeding has developed — tetraploids used to be too coarse, but now the colour and performance are exceptional.”

He also credits MM Seed’s Matt Gresty for his support. “Matt is exemplary—always at the end of the phone and great for bouncing ideas off. He’s incredibly knowledgeable.”

For Andy Richards and the team at Haileybury, MM Tetra Sport has revolutionised pitch performance, proving that with the right seed, you can achieve exceptional results while saving time and resources.

For further information, please contact MM Sports Seed on 01386 791102 or visit the company’s website www.mm-seeds.co.uk.

You can also follow the company on X: @MM_Seed.

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DLF supports top-level sport at Cranleigh School

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DLF supports top-level sport at Cranleigh School: While the challenges of managing the multi-sport surfaces at Cranleigh School may be akin to those faced by most in the education sector, here they’re on a mammoth scale!

With 248 acres of sports pitches, grounds and gardens to keep in quality condition year-round, the priorities when it comes to seed selection is reliability, versatility and tolerance for wear and tear. This, according to Deputy Grounds Manager Andy Burke, they’re achieving with mixtures from across the DLF and Johnsons Sports Seed ranges.

DLF supports top-level sport at Cranleigh School

DLF supports top-level sport at Cranleigh School

Cranleigh is one of Surrey’s leading co-educational independent schools and notes a number of leading public figures and some seriously sporty alumni over its 150+ year history. Its high sporting calibre is perhaps unsurprising given the scope of the surfaces available to pupils which includes 21 winter sports pitches, 8 cricket pitches and a 9-hole golf course. When Andy joined the school 9 and a half years ago, mixtures from the Masterline and Johnsons Sports Seed ranges were already used site-wide, and he goes on to explain why this has continued.

“In our environment, and with the sheer scale of facilities, our scheduling of operations and renovations has to be pretty strict which ultimately means we are often putting seed in the ground when conditions aren’t perhaps optimal. For example, in the Spring of 2022 we carried out extensive overseeding on our cricket outfields and winter sports pitches using Johnsons J4Turf and PM81 from the Masterline seed range. Then, despite seeing very little rain until the start of September, our grounds team were incredibly impressed that after a dormant period we saw strong growth and incredible drought recovery at the first drop of moisture. The result was quality playing surfaces that looked good and performed evenly.”

Johnsons J 4Turf and J Premier Wicket are used on the cricket outfields and squares, which host upwards of 250 games a year. “The turnaround and level of wear is intensive, but we’ve found this combination of mixtures withstands the high level of play, recovering quickly and coping with climatic conditions – be those dry like last summer or wetter as we’ve had throughout 2024.”

The cricket outfields are cut down to 16mm until the last game of the season, then will be left to grow to 32mm where they will then play a critical part in a packed rugby programme. “This is where the seed really gets tested as the demands of rugby will push wear tolerance to the limit! We’ve always found the strong bladed and deep rooting DLF and Johnsons mixtures can handle that, before being taken down to 26mm for football.”

Masterline PM81 is ideally suited to the renovation and repair of winter sports pitches, multi-purpose fields and racecourses. The 100% perennial ryegrass mix delivers outstanding versatility, sward density and year-round colour. Beside this, J 4turf and J Premier Wicket, Andy and the team are also using Johnsons J Rye Green on their golf greens and Masterline PM51 Greenscape as a general, high-performance mixture for landscaping and hard-wearing lawns.

He concludes, “It’s ultimately these mixtures that are the foundation to everything we oversee in our department and that year after year give us the quality and, importantly, the versatility to sustain such a high level of sport.”

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New community sport zone at SALTEX

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New community sport zone at SALTEX: New to SALTEX 2023 is the Community Sport Zone which presents a range of grass pitch maintenance machinery curated to be of specific interest to grassroots and community football, rugby union and rugby league clubs – all of which can be purchased through funding schemes.

Spokespeople from the brands will be present alongside the GMA’s Regional Pitch Advisors to guide visitors through the features and benefits of the machinery, answer questions and explain how this machinery is available to purchase thanks to the millions of pounds of funding that has been awarded via the Premier League, The FA and Government’s Football Foundation to support grassroots football, as well as for Rugby League and Rugby Union in England.

New community sport zone at SALTEX

New community sport zone at SALTEX

In the zone, located alongside the GMA Hub, will be compact tractors from Campey Turf Care and Iseki, combination grooming tools such as Quadraplay, tractor mounted slitters from Greentek Solutions, tractor mounted fertiliser spreaders, cricket mowers, and line markers from Fleet Ltd.

The GMA’s Pitch Advisory Service is made up of grass pitch experts and understands volunteer and community sport grounds staff better than anyone else. The Pitch Advisory Service works throughout the year to support sport’s National Governing Bodies in improving the quality of grass pitches across the country and at all levels of sport, with particular focus on community sport.

The machinery on display in the Community Sport Zone has been curated from Pitch Advisory Service recommendations in their grass pitch reports facilitated through the Football Foundation’s PitchPower web-based app.

Jason Booth, chief operating office at the GMA, says: “We’re always looking at new ways to bring value and valuable experiences to visitors at SALTEX, hence the introduction of the Community Sport Zone at this year’s event.

“It will showcase key machinery that will directly benefit grounds people at a recreational level and is an opportunity not to be missed for grassroots clubs needing an introduction to the machinery and the funding opportunities available.

“We are extremely proud of the work our Pitch Advisory Service does year-round to support community sport across the country in collaboration with our partners at the National Governing Bodies – the machinery on show wouldn’t be possible for community clubs to acquire if it wasn’t often funded through the Football Foundation’s Grass Pitch Maintenance Fund.

“We appreciate the National Governing Bodies’ support and look forward to introducing a new audience to the world of benefits that SALTEX can offer grounds care professionals at all levels of sport.”

There will also be a guided tour with the GMA’s Regional Pitch Advisors taking visitors around the show floor to see the exhibitors displaying more specialised equipment.

To take advantage of this unique opportunity, register now for Europe’s largest and leading sports turf, amenities, and landscaping trade exhibition at Birmingham NEC on 1-2 November 2023 at: https://bit.ly/456l0dA

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Making sport possible at SALTEX

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Making sport possible at SALTEX: SALTEX and its organisers, the Grounds Management Association (GMA), pride themselves on the 77-year history of the event and making it the largest trade show for the sector in Europe. This history, along with the GMA’s work towards making sport possible, has made SALTEX the exhibition of choice for five of the UK’s National Governing Bodies (NGBs).

Year round the GMA, Football Association (represented by Football Foundation), Sport England, England & Wales Cricket Board, Rugby Football League, and Rugby Football Union work collaboratively to improve pitches and upskill those in the industry.

Making sport possible at SALTEX

Making sport possible at SALTEX

SALTEX is the exhibition of choice for these leading sporting bodies when it comes to meeting those who work in the groundscare industry. This has been proven by their annual participation over two busy days on the buzzing SALTEX show floor, sharing insights learned from their work, providing free technical advice on maintaining playing surfaces, and providing guidance on accessing funding.

Following its launch at Lord’s Cricket Ground earlier this year, representatives from the NGBs will be on hand to speak with visitors about the GMA’s Grounds Management Framework. The NGBs, along with members of the Pitch Advisory Service, will be available at the GMA Hub to offer support to grounds staff in learning how they can use the game-changing framework to upskill and improve their playing surface, as well as gain access to a wealth of information.

Jason Booth has worked in the grounds care sector his whole career, from his early days at Yorkshire County Cricket Club and Leeds Rhinos to becoming chief operating officer at the GMA, and understands the importance of building closer relationships between the groundscare sector and the NGBs. Here, Jason explains why SALTEX is the exhibition of choice for five leading National Governing Bodies:

“Our relationship and the work we do with these five leading NGBs is critical to the future of sport. Whether professional or grassroots, sport is simply not possible without grounds staff and groundscare businesses – our industry as a whole. The NGBs understand this which is why they support the sector through funding and by attending SALTEX.

“The NGBs also play a major role in our Learning LIVE education programme where they will discuss several burning topics relevant to their respective sports, from grassroots facility funding and workforce development to showcasing the work that has gone into the major sporting events this year.

“Their input, in addition to other interactive panel discussions, which will cover key issues such as pay and reward, mental health and wellbeing, and work-life balance, adds great value to our Learning LIVE programme. And there’ll also be the latest updates on key legislations or restrictions, that are essential for today’s grounds staff to be aware of.”

Jason continues: “SALTEX is a date in all our diaries where we can come together, meet likeminded colleagues from the sector, and network with grounds staff from all sports and at all levels, from the grassroots to representatives from UEFA. There really is no better place than SALTEX for grounds staff and those working in the industry to get the latest updates on funding, as well the opportunity to meet and talk to the representatives from the NGBs about our challenges as well as paths to success.”

Register now for Europe’s largest and leading sports turf, amenities, and landscaping trade exhibition at Birmingham NEC on 1-2 November 2023 at: https://bit.ly/456l0dA

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