Wolverhampton Wanderers FC have recently purchased seven Dennis PRO 34R rotary mowers and deputy head groundsman Anthony Parker says they have made a huge improvement to turf maintenance operations at both the Molineux Stadium and the Club’s Sir Jack Hayward Training Ground.

Since the 2016 takeover by Fosun, a Chinese conglomerate and investment company, Wolverhampton Wanderers FC have returned to the Premier League.

“It just all seemed to come together at the same time,” said Anthony. “The new owners arrived and more investment was available for equipment, the club were doing well and it just all went hand in hand.”

At a time when the Club was investing in new turf maintenance equipment the Dennis PRO 34R was launched and Anthony explained why the purchase of these new machines became the number one priority.

“We used to use six small rotary mowers which did a decent job but because of the additional pitch lighting we purchased, we needed to take more staff off the rotaries in order to have more help putting the lighting rigs out during the winter months. When we saw the PRO 34R’s come to the marketplace, it just made complete sense to get a fleet of these in so we purchased four for the training ground and three for the stadium.”

The PRO 34R is a 34" rotary mower which has been designed to help groundsmen achieve an aesthetically pleasing appearance and desired playing surface. It is suitable for sports pitches producing the 'Dennis Stripes' while a powerful vacuum flow collects debris.

“With these bigger machines you are allowing more staff to go elsewhere to do additional jobs,” said Anthony. “At the training ground we didn’t rotary cut very often because it was such a time consuming task - normally we had to wait until the first team were off for a day and then maybe six of us would get on the small rotaries and it would take quite a while."

However, with these new PRO 34R’s the staff are using them straight away after a training session to clean the pitches up. They are using them every day and they have improved the pitches no end.

“It is great when you leave the stadium after a match-day knowing everything has been done and everything is clean – it certainly helps me sleep easily," said Anthony.

At the stadium, Anthony and the team use the PRO 34R and the Dennis G860 in conjunction by relying on the rotaries to cut down to 25mm before switching to the cylinder mowers for the final presentation cuts (23mm) in preparation for match-day.