Campey Turf Care Systems has supplied three machines to Mel Pooley, who is spearheading a pilot scheme for Sport England to improve natural turf surfaces at grassroots level. First were the Imants ShockWave and a Dakota Spreader, with a Vredo Overseeder DZ the latest machine to be purchased to expand the works offered.
The venture encompasses sports pitches in Cambridge and Huntingdon and almost 70 clubs from varying sports were included last year.
Mel has been involved since the project started two years ago and has seen a massive uptake from football, rugby and cricket, and hopes that the addition of the Vredo can help the scheme drive forward and continue to improve local pitches.
“We want to give the areas of Cambridge and Huntingdon the benefit of professional machinery used by professionals to help improve grassroots surfaces,” he explained.
“We operate by providing them with a priority list starting with that they need to do, what they should do if they have enough money, and then what the ultimate works would be if they can afford to have it done.
“But we are very careful to take into consideration that a lot of these small clubs have limited financial resources and in some cases no money at all. We’ve also started seeing a lot of parish councils come on board, and we are able to take on three-year contracts, which are great for us going forward.”
The program run by Sport England carries the same goals as Campey’s own Pitch Renovation Tour, which also highlights the need for improvements on grassroots pitches, and Mel is adamant that the Campey machines have helped make the project a success.
As a pilot scheme Mel was aware that ensuring work was carried out to a high standard at the first time of asking was imperative, both for the reputation of the project and to ensure maximum value for money.
“We started off with the Imants ShockWave and Dakota Topdresser and with those machines at our disposal we were in the position to do a lot of the work, but now we have the Vredo we can carry out a better overall job in the spring.
“We know it will put the seed in good contact with the soil, and it has a fantastic germination rate because of it, and that’s why we wanted it. Teams will want to start playing in a couple of months, and you only get one chance, so that’s why we chose the Vredo, it stands out as a class machine and we know it will deliver great results.”
The achievements so far show have illustrated that using the right machinery can make a massive difference to the playing surfaces, improving playing conditions and so increasing the desire to play on them. This is vital for keeping sport alive at grassroots level.
