Hayden Road - Pitch & Ground Maintenance Updates

All things unofficial about AFC Rushden & Diamonds and general football talk.
Dazzler
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Re: Hayden Road - Pitch & Ground Maintenance Updates

Post by Dazzler »

Pitch maintenance continued over the weekend with a cut on pitch and around the ground. Nets folded away for now also. Some basic maintenance to fence ongoing over the next few weeks to patch/repair some areas.

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Adrian
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Re: Hayden Road - Pitch & Ground Maintenance Updates

Post by Adrian »

Not often you see a non league pitch looking so green in November!

Thanks to everyone who has been putting their time and effort into the maintanence, in times when extra planning is required for almost every task, your efforts are greatly appreciated, thank you and stay safe.
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Re: Hayden Road - Pitch & Ground Maintenance Updates

Post by Dazzler »

Pitch maintenance ongoing.
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Re: Hayden Road - Pitch & Ground Maintenance Updates

Post by Dazzler »

As part of the recent DCMS funding - as per ongoing pitch works have continued through Feb/March as usual.

A couple of weeks ago the pitch had some spring works, plus we brought forward some of the summer works we'd normally do at that time (top dressing etc..). Summer work this year will be fairly limited feed/seed, plus use of some additional pitch tools (dethatcher/slitter etc..) with our club mower to help keep pitch in good condition over the summer ensuring the pitch is available when it’s needed in early July.

The spring works this year included an application of top dressing, seed and vertidraining/aeration with a fertiliser application to follow shortly

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Re: Hayden Road - Pitch & Ground Maintenance Updates

Post by Dazzler »

Also as part of the funding, we had some additional work that is complete or in progress.

CONIFERS
Trim the conifers scheduled (Ensure floodlights not restricted or generating pitch shadows) - which was due to happen today (31st March), but the large cherry picker platform our contractor hires had a fault and they couldn't get the part to fix (Probably stuck in the Suez), so that will happen over next few weeks. This is to trim back area over CR stand down to the corner (the bit we didn't do in Jan 2019), as well as retrim the previously cut area, from dugouts up to the PDB end.

EMERGENCY/SAFETY LIGHTING
In addition we have additional emergency/stand lighting in the Main Stand and PDB at far end of ground, as well as some additional emergency lighting in the Chris Ruff stand. Finally, there will be some LED low level fence lighting to ensure the far side pathway is more evenly lit - replacing the interim battery ones we had previously. This work is currently in progress.

GENERAL MAINTENANCE/UPKEEP
Other funded areas are to be worked on over the coming weeks/months with a few of our volunteers with relevant covid procedures. This includes the normal summer work like Jetwashing, repainting fences, repairing pitch boundary fence etc.. All the materials for this work have been aquired under the DCMS scheme and we are currently just sorting things so ready for scheduled works to start.

RHUFC have a few (3 or 4) behind closed doors UCL matches in April from 17th - as per UCL cup competition they have announced. See relevant UCL pages for that. Currently AFCRD are likely due at HR in early July as part of the previously announced competition but all dates to be confirmed.
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Re: Hayden Road - Pitch & Ground Maintenance Updates

Post by Dazzler »

A manual Dennis Pitch cut earlier this week - about 10.2km walk.

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Re: Hayden Road - Pitch & Ground Maintenance Updates

Post by Dazzler »

A manual pitch cut is about 10 times around the deck of the Ever Given, seen here to scale next to Hayden Road.

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therushden
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Re: Hayden Road - Pitch & Ground Maintenance Updates

Post by therushden »

has the pitch benefitted from not having as much use? or has the maintenance been the norm?
a bit of sun and rain and you'll be cutting that every other day :biggrin:
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Re: Hayden Road - Pitch & Ground Maintenance Updates

Post by Dazzler »

therushden wrote: Thu Apr 01, 2021 6:40 pm has the pitch benefitted from not having as much use? or has the maintenance been the norm?
a bit of sun and rain and you'll be cutting that every other day :biggrin:
I just noticed MarkP's reply got lost or didn't save when I added it.

Per MarkP - "The pitch has benefitted from having no games, the grass coverage speaks for itself. However the pitch still needs its regular maintenance. Keeping the surface clean as possible and keeping air to the roots is important regardless of games or not. Due to the wet cold winter we had the pitch itself lost quite a bit of grass coverage (with the matches played in Oct-December). Which means even with the lack of games the recovery still takes time, but is progressing well."

There are a few RHUFC matches over the next few weeks - and we also have some more feed to go into pitch - then it's maintenance, and regular cutting as normal through to pre-season with some extra seed/feed/watering at times depending on weather etc..
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Re: Hayden Road - Pitch & Ground Maintenance Updates

Post by Dazzler »

Other Ground updates...

Some basic tidying has been done ahead of a few matches with R&HUFC at Hayden Road behind closed doors in April/early May including weeding, strimming, sweeping etc.., so the main painting etc.. we'll schedule in once that is finished so we don't have too many people around, or wet paint when a match is scheduled. The first match is this Saturday with RHUFC playing in the UCL Cup competition (this is as mentioned behind closed doors - players only).

CONIFERS
Our contractor for this is still waiting for the cherry picker platform he requires to be available - they were still missing a spare part last I checked. This is due to be done in April.

EMERGENCY/SAFETY LIGHTING
This work is mostly complete - with Emergency/Stand lighting in all stands completed, and the pathway lighting in progress. See pics later in thread.

GENERAL MAINTENANCE/UPKEEP
As per above, all the materials (Wood/Paint etc.) are ready for use, and we will schedule the bulk of this work once the RHUFC playing season is over.

Main jobs available are putting some fence posts/fencing in Mower Area (fixing Heras panels to posts, and remeshing), repainting fencing around pitch (both sides) [Green/Grey and Metalwork in places] with some panels being replaced also, Ground perimeter wooden fencing, metal gates repainted, mesh net cable tie repairs, jetwashing - paths/stands (await a part for my jetwash for this) - and then later in the summer nearer restart we'll redo the Yellow/Red/Blue markings as appropriate at the time for compliance too, and also the usual Stand Seat polishing before first games.

We also hope to do some repainting and roof repairs on both Dale's Bar and the Club Shop Container unit too - currently sorting funds for materials for that (roofing sealant etc..).

VOLUNTEERING
We have a small whatsapp group with people who have volunteered in the past which I tend to communicate on to grab people when needed to do the tasks - socially distanced etc.. as required these days. If you are not already on it, and wish to be added just message me directly on here via DM (not posted in this thread), and I can add you to the group. I'll try to have a few weekday daytime slots, as well as some weekend Sat/Sun slots too.

Post Match Pitch volunteers - also if anyone would like to volunteer to help do basic post match work, the groundsman is looking for a few people to spend 20-40 mins post match on the pitch to do general divoting repairs. The groundsman will do the relevant training with you. Ideally we want people that can do it regularly immediately after matches where possible (Saturdays and Weeknights). Again DM me privately on here and will add you to the relevant whatsapp group or I can grab your contact info (phone/sms/email). Generally for this you'd come to area near turnstiles post match to collect forks/bib etc.. and then do some repairs on an allocated part of the pitch. The best time for all repairs is immediately post match in most cases - though often at present we do the following day or during Monday for a Saturday match which isn't ideal.
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