West Ham United took another step closer to moving to their new London Stadium home as the first seeds were sown on the pitch last week.
FC Business reported that the work began on Wednesday morning and the process took around four hours to complete.
The London Stadium undergoing seeing pictured in FC BusinessThe first sprouts of grass were hoped to be seen around about today (Monday 13th June), and the pitch should be ready for its inaugural full cut in around two to five days time.
Head Groundsman at the London Stadium Greg Bolton, working in conjunction with West Ham United’s Head Groundsman Dougie Robertson, expressed the importance of the seeding and assured supporters that it would be handled in the right way.
He is quoted by FC Business as saying, “It certainly is a big moment [in the development of the Stadium]. It’s very important that this is taken with great care. I think the idea is not to rush this process. We have to get it right.
“The contractors we have on site are one of the best around. They do all the top grounds in the country, and we’re glad to have them on board here. It most certainly will be one of the best surfaces around.”
Though the seeds on the surface will take around a week to shoot, the pitch already had a green colouring, which Bolton explained was due to the artificial components in the turf.
“It’s very deceiving at the moment,” he tolf FC Business. “We’ve got the Desso fibres all exposed, and a lot of people think we’ve got full grass coverage already, but all that is just the reinforcing system in the surface.
“It’s exactly the same as the Club had at the Boleyn Ground, and it just helps aid soil stability. We shouldn’t have any big divots coming out of the surface; it should just be scarring. It helps with repairs and holding the surface together.”
Athletics events will be held at the London Stadium prior to the start of West Ham's 2016/17 campaign – which will kick-off with a UEFA Europa League third-qualifying round tie and the Betway Cup clash with Juventus on Sunday 7 August.
The London Anniversary Games will see track and field events take place there over the weekend of 22-23 July, but Bolton assured fans that the surface will be ready for the Club’s opening game at their new home.
“We are expecting to see slight imprints in the surface [after the athletics] which we don’t see as being too much of an issue,” he explained. “It will just be a case of going round with a fork and just lifting areas which have any slight impressions in them.
“The athletics require a clean surface without any markings, so the first [football] markings will be going on the week after the athletics ahead of the West Ham fixtures.”
