The Glasgow Academy has become the first independent school in Scotland to purchase their own 2018 model Koro FIELDTOPMAKER (Koro FTM) from Campey Turf Care Systems.
The Koro FTM at Glasgow Academy
The demands of maintaining pitches for a school that offers football, rugby, hockey, cricket and athletics on eight pitches across four locations as well as a separate sand and water based astro pitches has its own unique issues when it comes to renovations with a short 10-week window at the end of the school year.
For head groundsman, Robert Cheape, there is very little crossover time during terms with sports seasons often overlapping. His team of five also have the main school and prep school grounds to maintain and the decision to bring in a new Koro FTM was to provide flexibility and choice to renovations.
“We have multiple sports with very little downtime between them,” he said. “As one season finishes the next season starts and that was one of the reasons behind getting our own Koro, because we wanted the flexibility to manage the pitches in a better way.
“In our situation being able to vary to what degree we use the Koro FTM on the pitches is massive and directly tackles the issue of short periods of downtime.
“We’ve got the 5mm blades on it and the material that’s been coming out with it has been unbelievable and the organic matter it’s been ripping up is very impressive.
“I was very impressed with it then but even more so now with the new model because of the flexibility when it comes to the different blade sizes because it gives you the option to use what you need.
“I’d love to Koro FTM off the pitches completely but because of the overlap of the various sports we just don’t get the time, it would mean taking some time off of cricket, so it would be them who would suffer, and although they are flexible there’s only so much room to manoeuvre.”
Robert continued, "We try to keep all of our work in-house but occasionally for the bigger jobs like primary drainage we use other contractors but generally, we do it all ourselves with machines like the ShockWave 220.
“We got a good demonstration of the Koro FTM from Richard Heywood from Campeys when he delivered the machine, but I think by using it more we’ll build the familiarity with it and be able to use it to greater effect on the site.”.
