There’s been plenty of hard work going on behind the scenes at The Dunes Hotel Stadium to ensure the playing surface is in its usual fantastic condition come the start of 2022/23.
Following the 24-Hour Charity Match and the Pitch Up Music Festival at the end of last season, the diggers promptly arrived to begin the work of stripping everything off and starting the process to perfect the surface ahead of the new campaign.
Head Groundsman, Gareth Morgan has been overseeing the huge project which has seen the ground fully laser graded with a bulldozer to level the pitch off before 300 tonnes of sand was laid down to further help with levelling and drainage.
It was then power harrowed to reduce compaction and help fluff out the soil before the entire surface was then stone raked to prepare it for the full seeding which followed.
“After the festival and the compaction levels of the ground, it was a good opportunity for us to invest in stripping the pitch back and doing all the work that was needed,” explained Gareth.
“The laser grading coupled with the sand should ensure the pitch is the most level it’s ever been and that will help with drainage because we shouldn’t have the big ponds that have formed previously, and the surface should drain more freely.
“Now that the process is complete and the seeding is done, it’s simply down to waiting and crossing your fingers for a mixture of warm and wet weather to help the growing – and so far it’s been ideal!
“Hopefully, we should start to see the first shoots of green by the end of this week and then it will just be a case of nurturing it, cutting it and bringing it back into a football pitch for the start of the season.
“We can’t really grumble at the progress made so far and we’ve been lucky with the weather so hopefully that can carry on for the next few weeks and we can have the pitch back to its very best for 2022/23.”