With the advancements in turf technology and hybrid pitches the scope for improvements has been considerably narrowed, and Stoke City Football Club head groundsman, Andy Jackson, has turned to the GT Inject Air2G2 and Campey UniRake to target his marginal gains.

At the top level of English football perfect playing surfaces are becoming the norm, with efforts of grounds professionals to surpass themselves year on year becoming an ever more difficult task. Andy began his career at Stoke City 22-years ago when the landscape of turf technology was very different to what it is today.

The progression of pitches has coincided with the growth of the Premier League and the money that has brought to those at the top table of the English game, with Stoke a very good example. In Andy’s first season at Stoke Mike Sheron was the clubs top goal scorer in the old Division One, but they now boast several international footballers with their squad worth an estimated £150 million.

It is now Andy’s responsibility to provide the first team manager and his squad the perfect pitches across the Clayton Wood training ground and bet365 Stadium. Constantly striving for excellence and improvements has seen Andy delve deep into his maintenance plans and the Air2G2 and UniRake are an essential part of those programmes.

“We’ve got to a point where the pitches are getting better every year and you’re looking at yourself and thinking what can we do to improve,” Andy began. “It’s getting harder and harder because with the attention to detail you’re down to one or two per cent of improvements.

“To pinpoint that small amount to change is quite hard, whereas 10 or 20 years ago when the KORO FIELD TOPMAKER® came out you could drastically improve your pitch, but now it’s the small things that are making the big difference.

“We once dreamed of using technology like the Air2G2 15-20 years ago, and for me it’s going to be really good with the Desso construction pitches in preventing any compaction around the undersoil heating pipes and the lower profile.”

Preventing these areas of compaction was Andy’s main aim on the Desso pitches, but the soil based pitches have also seen an improvement through use of the Air2G2.

“There’s no other machine we can use to do that job around the pipes,” he explained. “I feel comfortable with it, it’s pedestrian mounted and there’s no weight on the pitch, it’s easy to use and you can aerate using varying amounts of air.

“Compaction around the pipes isn’t a specific issue we’ve been having, but it’s a specific issue we don’t want to get. We use it on the soil pitches as well because it’s a predominately heavy clay here, which means they can get quite hard in dry conditions and can get very wet during the winter.

“What we’ve noticed on the soil based pitches is that where we’ve had compaction problems we’ve been able to relieve it quite quickly. With the machine having the hand-held tool attachment you can get into areas you wouldn’t be able to with a tractor mounted machine, and there’s no disruption to the surface when you use it – you can play immediately.”

The UniRake has also joined Andy’s arsenal of machines, and whilst not as sophisticated as the Air2G2, the UniRake’s adjustable grooming intensity has made it a firm favourite at Stoke for regular pitch grooming and for use during renovations.

Andy explains the role the rake plays in-between training sessions, helping to remove organic material from the surface whilst leaving little to no evidence it’s been used.

He said: “We looked to the UniRake to improve our maintenance operation on the Desso constructed pitches and to take some of the weaker grasses out. This is because the pitches get quite thick before the end of the season, but we also use it during the renovation as well, and It’s been a huge success for us.

“The main thing is being able to adjust it. You can be quite aggressive with it or you can just tickle the top of the surface with it after training, and the players can train on the same pitch in the afternoon and not realise that we’ve done quite a fair operation on the pitch.”