The unofficial AFC Rushden & Diamonds messageboard

Ongoing works with the pitch continue with the selective weedkiller a few weeks back once we had some moisture around, that killed off some of the broad leaf weeds, and these have now died off and mostly infilled with the normal grass. This was also given a boost of fertiliser recently, alongside a worm treatment to push the worms away from the surface - this currently seems to last a few weeks with another application soon. We'll monitor but that helps to keep smothering of the grass to keep coverage longer.

In addition a small amount of work around the ground is ongoing with minor repairs to the perimeter fence, and replacing some of the worst weather damaged wood (despite the multiple paint/varnish/water repellent - though 4+ years for non marine ply is not too bad). Mainly just patching as the original boards are nearly 3 times the price they once were, so patching top and bottom as well as redoing the varnish/water protection, and using marine ply where we do replace.

See pics from Groundsman Mark Panter's twitter (he's made it public now - previously I copied pics over to duplicate).

Volunteer Tim also popped up earlier in the week to do another coat of Danish Oil on the Memorial Bench that he organised with others. Looking good. A couple more coats to help protect it through the winter.

Also a couple of weeks back the sprinkler hoses went away for the winter too - washed and cleaned etc.. Currently just the one tricoflex hose left out in case we need to do anything else.

Pitches part prepped ahead of this weekend - and then we have quite a few 2 matches per week coming up over the next few weeks - initially 4 AFCRD ones, but then mixed in with RHUFC.

Pitch is looking really good and is an advert for all your hard work,well done

The top end area where the Burger van sits didn't recover well after the summer (only weeds survived - plus it's currently uneven anyway), so we have weed sprayed and mulched that area now to tidy it up a bit (onsite mulch from the conifer trimming shreddings).

Earlier in the week more pitch work from MarkP to spike, brush, feed and also spray worm inhibitor again


Saturday (22nd Oct) morning ahead of RHUFC match - hopefully pitch will firm up after the rain over last few days. No problem for match but may be some repairs/divoting needed post match today.