Wednesday 2nd December this week is due to see the end of the second national lockdown in England. The government is hoping that the R-rate of the disease will be down enough to allow restrictions to be lifted.
Going back to a modified three tier system will allow people and businesses to return to work and hopefully enable people to enjoy the forthcoming Christmas festivities. There is also hope that a ban on outdoor grassroots sport is set to be lifted in England when the national lockdown ends.
While elite sports has continued behind closed doors during England's four-week lockdown, grassroots and amateur sport has been halted since 5 November.
Talking about grassroots sport, culture secretary Oliver Dowden told BBC Sport, "I'm desperate for it to come back. I am pretty hopeful and confident as we go back into the tier system. It's top of the list for us to get it back from 2 December. I know how valuable it is."
I completely agree, getting amateur sport back will be a lifeline for many grassroots sports clubs. As I mentioned in a previous TurfPro, Lisa Wainwright, chief executive of the Sport and Recreation Alliance which represents British national sports organisations, said that the recent restrictions will critically affect over 150,000 plus local sports clubs in every community across England and place them in a perilous scenario, not knowing if they will ever open again.
Also, we will see a return to the golf course with clubs allowed to open which will be encouraging news for the sport.
Last week a £300m bail-out for spectator sports in England was announced, but no additional funding was directed specifically at recreational sport. Which again Lisa Wainwright, said it was "critical that a proportion of this money goes to the lifeblood of each sport at the community level".
She added: "It remains crucial that community sport and recreation is opened up as soon as possible to enhance the physical and mental health of the nation as we move out of the debilitating effects of lockdown.
"While this release of funding is a very welcome development, we should remember that many sports are not covered by this package and they remain in a perilous situation with clubs and community centres struggling to survive the latest restrictions.”
I agree with Lisa’s comments. There will many clubs that will no doubt have to close if this pandemic continues at its present rate. However, with the announcement of a vaccine being rolled out in December, we may finally see many of these Covid-19 restrictions being lifted thus allowing community clubs to operate fully again.
While on the subject of grassroots sports I would like to commend and thank all of those community sports club’s groundsmen and volunteers who throughout this pandemic have rallied around and continued to maintain their facilities through this difficult year. It just goes to show the dedication and commitment of this band of brothers. With the aid of Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook we have managed to see all the good work these unsung heroes have achieved during these difficult times.
Let’s just hope that with this pending return of sport, all their hard work will be justified and we finally see some competitive sport being played out and more importantly clubs can see a return on all their investment and patience during this time. The physical and mental health benefits will be enormous once we return to regular participation of community sport.
Once we start a programme of vaccination, I believe we should also see a return of spectators to professional sport and the opportunity for bars and restaurants to thrive again.
Winter golfing works
On the golfing front, just a reminder of some of the work that usually gets done during the winter months. The list can be endless, and because golf is played all year round, it means the greenkeeping staff still have to ensure their playing surfaces are fit for play. Frost and snow are usually a concern as they can disrupt play and create a lot of additional work for the staff.
Many clubs tend to undertake a lot of the regular winter works themselves, such as turf repairs around tees, greens and bunkers. Ditch and pond work also quite often take up a lot of their time along with tree and tree plantation works. Large projects are often done in conjunction with bringing in specialist contractors who are geared up and can turn the job around much more quickly. It all depends on the budgets and resources each club has available.
Having spoken to a number of greenkeepers, there is still a healthy debate on whether golf greens should be kept playable during frost? And do we use winter or temporary greens or indeed play off winter matts? I’m from a generation of greenkeepers who during heavy frosts, made use of temporary greens until the frost disappeared. We also had a set of winter tee matts we put out in November to reduce wear on tees.
However, during the last twenty plus years, the vast improvement in greenkeeping practices, machinery and plant knowledge has improved playing surfaces beyond anything we had in our day back in the 1970s and 80s. For a start we now have far more drier, better managed, golf courses with much better and freer draining greens, tees and approaches and fairways.
Also helpful is winter weather fronts have completely changed in that we rarely have long spells of snow or icy weather. For many clubs the need for winter greens and tees has diminished with very few clubs resorting to their use.
However, there is still a healthy debate going on as whether we should be playing on frosted greens.
Some courses use temporary greens at the first sign of a frost, while others carry on regardless. Whether or not to play on frosty greens is a subject of much debate in the turf community and it’s an issue that’s largely considered on a course-by-course basis. Any decision can depend on the type of course, the type of grass and the composition of greens.
What might cause significant bruising and damage at one course, may not do the same somewhere else. The needs of the business may also have to be taken into consideration. In that what is the courses policy on this and what detrimental effect will it have on the course both financially and aesthetically.
If you have the resources, time and space to provide 18 temporary greens then there may be a case to promote the use of these during frosty conditions - whereas other clubs will continue to use the main greens or close the course until the frost subsidies.
Turf professionals need to take into account the long-term damage that may occur if you have prolonged spells of frost and you continue to play on frosted greens. Usually the damage will require a lot more work to help the greens recover in the spring.
National Tree Week
And finally just a reminder it is National Tree Week.
It was originally called Plant A Tree in ‘73 and started in (you guessed it!) 1973 in response to Dutch Elm Disease - a tree disease that stops them from getting water properly. It’s all about getting lots of communities to do more to help their local environment by planting as many trees as they can.
A tree I planted in 1973 in Kings Heath Park
The main focus of National Tree Week is planting more trees something I spoke at length about in last week’s edition of TurfPro.
Why not celebrate this week by putting plans in place to plant some trees to help improve our environment? I fondly remember planting trees in 1973 when working for Birmingham City Council and I still find myself often going back to the parks where they were planted to see how they have matured forty-seven years on.
