The 2015/16 Sky Bet Championship season came to a close last week with The Bees fine 5-1 win over Huddersfield Town but preparations for the new campaign at Griffin Park are already well underway. Work on the main pitch at Griffin Park began last week and Operations Manager Alan Walsh believes it won’t be long until the new playing surface begins to take shape.
“We have cleaned up the top surface by removing the top of the crown and thatch element of the grass” said Alan. “We have re-seeded it and had a light dressing on top. In two or three weeks’ time we envisage having grass growing through. The plan is that once the new grass begins to establish we will then provide another fine top dressing of sand and vertidrain the Motz carpet so the roots can develop below the fibre backing. This is still the same pitch, the structure is the same but all we have done is clean the top up. I am excited about how it is going to look ready for the pre-season match with Kaiserlautern on Saturday 23 July.”
The Bees became the first professional football club in the country to play on a Motz pitch when it was installed last August. The pitch, which uses a hybrid of natural grass and artificial fibres, is not dissimilar to a Desso surface but costs around a third of the price, and Alan has been delighted with how it has stood up to the demands placed on it this season.
“The Motz pitch has performed outstandingly well,” said Alan. “During the month of January, It had three first team games played in seven days on it. Without the pumps and drainage that are installed there is no way that previous pitches would have stood up to that demand. The Motz pitch performed outstandingly compared to other pitches we have seen in the league. It gave the 1st team the opportunity to showcase what they can do. Before we started this renovation work people were asking whether we needed to do it and that shows how good it looked.”
As well as the work going on at Griffin Park, the pitches and facilities at The Bees’ Jersey Road Training Ground are also being upgraded over the summer. The showcase Pitch One is being renovated while a new Motz pitch is being installed on Pitch Two to provide the same environment and feel of Griffin Park in every training session.
“The 1st team were very happy performing on Griffin Park so they wanted to replicate that in their training experience,” said Alan. “We are cleaning up Pitch One, taking the grass off it, over seeding and encouraging more root development with that. The plan is to have Pitch One ready when the guys return from pre-season and we will have Pitch Two, which is the new Motz pitch surface, all grown in and ready for the start of the new season in August. We have also put provision for five times as much water as before down at the training ground which means we can water the site more efficiently ensuring that the grass plant has the best chance to be established for the new campaign and also that areas are soft for players’ rehab.”