THE SHOW MUST GO ON
A feast of football - and stadia - to enjoy
by TurfPro Editor, Laurence Gale MSC, MBPR
 
Laurence Gale MSC, MBPR

I am sure many of us will be watching this year’s Euros football tournament, especially  as we’re able to follow three of our home nation countries, England, Wales and Scotland. And what a good start we had, with Wales drawing their first game with Switzerland and England beating Croatia, whilst playing some attractive football.

 

Let’s hope all three nations can get into the knockout stages of the competition. 

 


With eleven countries hosting matches I, like so many UK turf professionals, will be admiring the state and presentation of their pitches and seeing some great football being played. The quality of international stadium pitches has improved greatly in the last few years mainly due to the ongoing development of management regimes using the latest technologies and machinery. 


Growing and maintaining natural grass, or indeed hybrid playing surfaces, takes a lot of upkeep and maintenance. Over the last few years we have seen a transformation in the quality and performance of these pitches due to the diligence and skills of the grounds staff. No doubt they are going to be kept busy during the next couple of weeks maintaining these marvellous stadium venues and all the training areas allotted to the teams.

 


It’s now mid-June and I can safety say that cricket is finally getting the summer weather that we associate with the game. On those dry, warm days there is no grander spectacle than a full blown Test match at one of our many county grounds. Last weekend Gary Barwell and his staff were tasked with preparing a test pitch at Edgbaston for the England Test against New Zealand in front of 18,000 covid safe spectators. Unfortunately, England were completely outplayed in every department: batting, bowling, fielding and catching and lost by 8 wickets. 

 


Cricket clubs up and down the country are also terribly busy preparing their facilities for weekend matches. Last week I managed to catch up with a couple of my old council work colleagues who were busy preparing Edgmond Playing fields for a weekend cricket match.  Alan was cutting the outfield with a large Trimax Pegasus rotary mower while Tony and Bernie were cutting the square and preparing a pitch using Dennis FT mowers. It was great to catch up with the lads and see the council have retained the fine turf skills required to maintain their sports facilities.

 

 

The rest of my week was spent conducting a few Zoom meetings with Husqvarna, Amenity Forum and the RFU, whilst also taking delivery of  a couple of long pole hedge trimmers from STIHL who have loaned me their popular battery powered HLA 66 and 86 models for some product testing - of which my findings will be published in a forthcoming edition of TurfPro.

 

 

Looking ahead

 

As for other news, we are still awaiting the announcement from Boris and his government on whether the roadmap for Covid restrictions will be lifted on the 21st June. However, as we’re all aware what seems mostly likely now is a further four week extension of these rules. That will take us to July 19th and that may put many public and social events into jeopardy. It will be interesting to see if this change of dates effects the current BIGGA Festival of Turf event that’s due on the 21st-22nd of July? And also, the Sports & Grounds Expo event 0n the 27-29 July at the Three Counties Showground, Malvern.


It would seem the long-range weather forecast is stating we will have a continued mixed weather front bringing both rain showers and warmer humid periods of weather for the rest of the month and well into middle of July.  

 

 

The beginning of June is also, traditionally a busy time for local authorities who are busy planting out their summer bedding schemes - usually waiting until the first week in June to ensure the tender plants are not damaged by frost. When I started out as a propagator with Birmingham City Council in the 1970s, nearly every senior town park had its own set of greenhouses and nurseries to grow and produce their own bedding plant materials. Unfortunately today, many of these greenhouses have become old and unfit for purpose or simply demolished or closed due to operating costs. 

 


There are a few left though. In fact Birmingham still have some greenhouses and nurseries one at Kingsheath Park and the other at Cofton Nursery that are able to produce the many thousands of plants used in their wonderful bedding schemes in and around the city. 

 

 

Most if not all local authorities now buy their plant material from dedicated commercial nurseries.


I personally think it is important to continue to plant traditional formal summer and winter bedding schemes as it helps maintain the skills and plant knowledge that can be passed on to the next generation. We should endeavour to retain as many horticultural skills as we can to ensure our parks are maintained to a high level for many years to come. We also need to adapt and modify planting schemes. In recent years we have seen a resurgence of perennial planting along with the now popular wild flower plantings. All in all this affords us a wider range of plantings in our public parks and open spaces. 


In fact with so much talk about climate change and becoming carbon neutral, many local authorities are jumping on this initiative with the redesigning and planting of more native plant species to create wildlife corridors and rewilding of some areas of the town.

In this issue
EDITOR'S BLOG
THE SHOW MUST GO ON
NEWS
MAN CITY'S NEW PITCH TO INCLUDE A UK FIRST
EGO AND AS-MOTOR TEAM UP
ATCO DONATE TO NATIONAL MEMORIAL ARBORETUM
TORO LAUNCH NEW DEMONSTRATION AND SUPPORT TRAILER
MKM AGRI APPOINTED BY STIHL
IRELANDS OPEN NEW BRANCH
JOBS
ADVERTISE YOUR JOBS HERE
Sponsored Product Announcements
EXCEPTIONAL MANOEUVRABILITY, HIGH PRODUCTIVITY
GIE+EXPO – LOUISVILLE, USA
PREVIOUS FEATURES
EDITOR'S BLOG ARCHIVE
TURFPRO FEATURE ARCHIVE
PARTNERS
CAMPEY
Foley
LANTRA
Redexim
RIGBY TAYLOR
Turf Tank
Garden trader
PRODUCED BY THE AD PLAIN