What a feast of rugby we've enjoyed over the last week with four major cup finals being played.
The exciting Bristol Bears won the European Challenge Cup beating Toulon 32-19 in France. This was followed by a dramatic Rugby League Challenge Cup final at Wembley with Leeds narrowly beating Salford 17-16 by a drop goal in the closing minutes.
Then on the same day, Premiership club Exeter Chiefs beat Racing 92, 31-27 in a scintillating final at Bristol’s Ashton Gate stadium. And then a week later Exeter did the double winning the Premiership trophy beating Wasps 19-13 at Twickenham!
As an ex rugby union player, coach and RFU Pitch advisor, we could not have had a better advert for the game of rugby. I am sure there are many clubs up and down the country eager to get to playing and are all waiting for the Covid-19 restrictions to be lifted. We currently have a date of January for the commencement of amateur rugby to start playing competitive rugby again.
In my role of pitch advisor for the RFU I get the opportunity to meet many clubs who have signed up to the RFU Rugby Groundsmen Connected programme.
Individuals who sign up to the scheme will have a direct communication channel with Keith Kent and other RFU staff and industry friends on pitch maintenance issues. Members also get access to approved RFU Pitch Improvement Partnership maintenance contractors and RFU/RFF funding for pitch improvement projects will only be available to clubs who have a groundsman registered with RGC.
Most rugby clubs tend to rely on past players or club members to take on the many roles that are required to run the club. In my book one of the most important positions is that of club groundsman or grounds manager who is responsible for the upkeep and maintenance of the pitches.
First impression of any club is its appearance, ambience and the quality of its facilities. It was one of the reasons the RFU set up the Rugby Groundsman Connect programme which already has over 2000 members.
I have been advocating for many years that clubs need to invest more in the maintenance of their pitches and more importantly ensure they have the right set of machinery to undertake the basic maintenance tasks. This was one of the reasons why the RFU initiated the machinery support scheme.
Q&A with Bolton RUFC's Ian Hart
Since the scheme started over 40 clubs have now benefited from investing in new machinery. One such club that has seen a vast improvement in their pitches is Bolton RUFC who under the leadership of volunteer groundsman Ian Hart and his team of volunteers have made great strides in improving their pitches.
To help find out more about the club and the work Ian and his team undertake, I asked Ian a few questions that he was keen to answer.
Could you give us a brief history of the club, your role and its facilities?
The club has been in existence for over 100 years, however following its demise during the Second World War, it re-formed in the late 1960s using local pubs as a base and council pitches to play. We moved to Avenue Street in 1988 on reclaimed council greenspace close to the town centre, formerly a mill and lodge.
The clubhouse and car park were constructed at this time and a later extension, followed by the machine/storage shed in 2016.
We have three senior teams, a new women’s team and junior teams from U7s to senior colts with around 220 young people. Sundays are particularly busy with juniors either playing or training.
During summer months we host Bolton Mets Rugby League team for Saturday home games and also host a number of primary tag and secondary school tournaments. The pitches are available to the public for informal recreation from dog walking to picnicking and groups of lads playing cricket. It gets very busy in good weather and all are welcome if acting reasonably. To this end we are open to the community who (hopefully) see the area as well-managed green space. Over the past five years the grounds team have built good relations with many local users, who in turn help us to encourage appropriate use.
The clubhouse operates for external functions and hosts a weekly (externally run) meals club for the local homeless. We are in a challenging area and this unfortunately presents itself in the amount of litter, fly-tipping, vandalism, alcohol and drug misuse we encounter which takes time for the grounds team to deal with each time we meet.
My background of 20 years working in Lancashire’s countryside managing country parks, open space and agri/environment grants saw me make a natural move to volunteer groundsman five years ago.
There are five regular volunteers and a couple more that blow in when the wind is in the right direction! We are all former BRUFC players, mid 50s onward and either work flexibly or, are recently retired with a range of skills including teacher, doctor, engineers plus a couple of charlatans!
How many pitches do you have?
We have three pitches (two full sized, one slightly shortened) and a training area, the training area and smaller third pitch are floodlit. Mid-week training for most teams plus Saturday and Sunday matches and training means a lot of pressure and compaction.
During the winter period, any bad weather will force us to use artificial / all-weather surfaces which are hired at local schools and leisure centres to reduce impact on the two floodlit areas.
What work have you had done to the pitches in recent years?
Although much improved from former council pitches, the quality of playing surface was variable through the 80s, 90s and noughties with some main drains in place but heavy subsoil and no initial drainage in place to access these existing lateral drains.
2012 saw a substantial investment of over £150k, accessing RFU grant funding and local business sponsorship. Work consisted of removing subsoil layer, importing new surface layer incorporated with sand, placement of regular sand slits followed by re-seeding
Up to 2016 we worked from a shipping container with mower, linemarker, strimmer.
The new shed building in 2016 and tractor package in 2018 not only attracted new volunteers but also hugely improved our range of operations and ability to maintain and build on the 2012 restoration work.
What equipment do you have?
- Iseki TLE3400 38hp tractor (on RFU deal with Iseki) Hydrostatic gearing, easy to use and a larger carrying capacity than the 24hp suggested by the RFU for community clubs. Gives us future proofing to buy/hire small vertidrainer, disc seeder etc. It isn’t too heavy on the surface
- Sisis Quadraplay (on RFU deal with Sisis) Swiss army knife for groundsmen, so many operations in one pass. Fabulous
- Tomlins deep tine knife slitter
- Fleming 300 litre fertiliser hopper/spinner, We decide when to fertilise, much better in our hands
- Spray line marker, 2 x Honda mowers, Sthil strimmer, Sthil leaf blower, hand tools and workshop area
What is your maintenance programme? How often do you mow the pitches and what other work do you do?
We have an outside contractor for mowing. It is something we would consider doing ourselves but we don’t have space to house a 2.5m rotary deck. They cut with a five gang cylinder unit once weekly, with flexibility to increase to twice a week following fertiliser application.
Our maintenance programme is based our 2018 RFU Pitch Advisor Plan and using the machines as much as we can year-round to groom the surface and aerate. Following annual renovations, we fertilise and get pitches in top condition hopefully to last through winter.
De-compaction is a big issue. We hire outside contractors to Verti-drain early May at renovation time and again just before the autumn rain, toward end October. We would like to do this more often, however it is costly and we may look to purchase a smaller Verti-drainer.
Hand mowing and strimming around perimeters and areas the gang mower can’t reach is a big part of spring / summer / early autumn works, together with backpack weed spraying to perimeter fencing.
October 16th we managed line mark for the first time since early March ready for our `Return to Rugby`, 10 a side touch on Pitches 2 & 3. Some of our junior teams are slowly returning to touch competitions with other local teams, the hope is this will be possible for seniors.
Also notice dashed lines on training replicating side-line, 5m and 15m for lineout practice.
The inevitable litter, flytipping, anti-social behaviour and vandalism can soak up too much time.
Do you carry out end of season renovations?
Yes, usually early May following the last game. Duncan Ross Ltd completed the 2012 restorations and carry out our annual renovation to include:-
Vertidrain, sand, and disc seed all areas; we follow up with fertiliser on three occasions finishing with an autumn feed for grass strength through winter.
Following germination we beg for six weeks growth/strength before pre-season training starts back mid-July.
The changing climate makes seeding a risky (and costly) business. The 2018 drought saw £4k seed germinate then die, this year the hot, dry May resulted in germination after five weeks during which time a good amount was lost.
We are currently investigating the possibility of a bore hole (60m depth @£12k) and travelling sprinkler system with the option of connection to clubhouse for domestic water supply.
Main external sources of information and help in past five years:
- Duncan Ross Ltd,
- Rugby Groundsman Connected (RFU), excellent online tuition during lockdown
- RFU pitch advisor partnership - Duncan Preston – Head Groundsman @ Preston Grasshoppers RUFC – following visit in 2018 produced an annual plan
- Rigby Taylor rep - David Weir
- Fieldmasters NW Ltd (mowing) – Rick Denon
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I would like to thank Ian for presenting us with this information. It is important we share this with other clubs and try and inspire them to go down the same route.
I cannot emphasize the importance of the work of these dedicated volunteers, However, it can only be achieved if the clubs are willing to invest in the appropriate resources, machinery and services to maintain their pitches properly.
The RFU under the guidance of Ted Mitchell (National Facilities Manager) are very willing to help clubs especially during these testing times.
