these Open Championship Clubs choose to relief grind - Pitchcare

as a volunteer at Rochdale, whilst
completing his school studies and trying
to earn a place at Myerscough College.
Whilst Phil was delighted to have the
help, and was mightily impressed with
Drew’s dedication and commitment, the
club weren’t in a position to employ him
full or even part-time.
Drew eloquently presented his
frustrations and desire to work in the
industry to the Pitchcare members via
the message board and, eventually,
through ‘Find Me A Job’, was offered a
position at the Wigan Athletic training
ground by their Head Groundsman, Ian
Forshaw.
Drew was, understandably, delighted to
get a foothold in the industry, but Phil
soon realised what a valuable asset he
had lost and set about persuading his
club on the value of having an assistant.
After agreeing the relevant funding,
Drew was invited back to Rochdale as a
‘paid’ assistant. However, he remains
eternally grateful to Wigan Athletic for
giving him the initial opportunity.
Phil has been the Dale’s head
groundsman for nine years, initially
inheriting a heavy soil based pitch, with
limited drainage, that had changed little
over the years. However, with the
demands of dual use, often with back-toback
football and rugby, and just a five
week germination window in May and
June, Phil was struggling to maintain
grass cover.
After the particularly bad winter of
2006-7, when eight matches were
postponed due to poor drainage, the
club, based on Phil’s advice, agreed to
install new primary and secondary
Phil and Drew with the new Hayter Harriers
drainage systems. Souters Sports carried
out the work, installing a primary system
at five metre centres and a secondary,
sand banding system at one metre
centres. Further improvements were
undertaken in 2009 when a Mansfield
FibreSand pitch was installed. This also
meant that a new, fully automated pop
up watering system was required.
With the pitch surface now performing
much better, Phil was able to convince
the club to invest in new machinery,
purchasing a new Dennis G860 cassette
mower, a road legal 40hp New Holland
1920 tractor, Hardi sprayer, two
pedestrian Hayter Harrier rotary
mowers, linemarkers, a Trimax Procut
210 rotary for use on the training pitches
and a Charterhouse Verti-drain 7316.
The combination of having a surface
that can cope with high rainfall, and the
equipment to get on and do a good job,
has been the catalyst for producing a
better pitch. Even so, coping with two
different sports on the same pitch has it
challenges. “It is a lot easier, going from
football to rugby,” explains Phil. “We’ve
got it down to a fine art, greening out
lines, changing posts and re-marking
almost immediately after a game has
finished.”
“Our most worrying time is at the end
of the football season, when we have less
than seven weeks until the next home
fixture. That’s when we undertake our
renovation work, and the weather plays a
crucial role. Good weather, i.e. lots of
sunshine and warm temperatures helps
to stimulate fast germination and
establishment, which can be crucial. Last
year we employed the services of
Drew Duffy
Winter Sports
“Having a
fibresand pitch
certainly helps;
divot damage is
greatly reduced
compared to
the soil based
pitch”