Hi All,
We have been approached today to maintain some Sunday league football pitches. We haven't done much of it before and it seems they are just after someone to keep the grass short and maintain it through the winter while the season is running.
I've played on the pitch for years for a local team. Its quite dry and not very green.
Does anyone else maintain at pitches at this level and what are the standards that would be expected? It seems current people just cut it and that's it. Never seen it spiked etc. Goal mouths are a bit bare. Trouble is they aren't turning up on a regular basis and it all looks a bit messy with most of the grass at around 50-60mm which I think seems quite long.
They want it cutting every couple of weeks and they want the lines marked as often as they need doing which I am having to work on a price for. How long does it take to cut a pitch using a 1m wide ride on without collection?
Any help or advice would be appreciated.
Thanks
Ash
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I myself don't do football pitches but if they only want it cutting every couple of weeks (bit ambiguous with the timing?) how are you going to be able to maintain the lines from marking out? Takes a hell of a lot longer to mark out from scratch than it does to run over faded lines. May end up costing more than having it cut weekly and keeping the lines in.
Thanks for the reply Seth! Yeah I've figured out marking from fresh to be about 3-4 hours work for us being new at it. But we will see. There are two pitches that need marking and one that is already marked out so I can just use there lines! Ash
Having worked for the council and marked out hundreds of pitches over the years, you should only need to do one initial mark........ couple of hours....... and then a weekly overmark....... about 20 minutes (we were allowed 25 minutes on our "bonus" scheme") Even after cutting, I found that you could see the lines enough to do a satisfactory "overmark". We used to do the initial marking with creosote..... now banned...... then Paraquat...... now banned. We lived dangerously in those days:)
Thanks Graham, I thought it might take me a bit longer than 2 hours being new to it. Time will tell! I've played on many pitches with trenches where the lines should go Haha.
However you could probably do it in an hour depending on size of pitch and surrounds.
I would just think carefully before taking it on as if your machine is only domestic (a guess at 1m) it won't like cutting that amount of long grass every fortnight. And also the finish will probably not be very good.
Even with the cylinder if it's peeing down the 3-4 days and it ends up long it looks not brilliant so with a normal rotary mower expect worse.
Generally speaking people use 7 or 11 foot machines (or bigger) and are done in 15-20 minutes for 1 pitch.
Marking out is like graham says.
1 time it's a pain subsequently easy.
Make sure it's nice and short on first marking.
I'm not trying to be overly negative but it's all about the mower. Big reliable machine it's happy days and easy money. Just go in eyes open that's all
Let us know how you get on
Richard, Thanks for the advice. I've managed to price it competitively using a 4 ft wide mower. They know me and are quite happy with someone that will just turn up and cut the pitches.
I will probably use this as an opportunity to grow my knowledge with pitch care as they will allow me down there in my own time. Trying to find a decent course I can learn a bit more about.
Appreciate the hones advice and have taken it on board. Will keep you updated.
used to do this for a living at premier league level and we used 1m wide pedestrian machines and it took two people two hours to cut it so i would say you would be roughly 90mins if you are just cut and drop
10mm of roundup in your line marking paint and you will just manage to stay ahead of the game ;)
Wow Gavin! I would love to be doing it at that level! This is just a sunday league pitch but I'm hoping to use it to improve my skills and take it to the next level.
Was just going to cut and drop. There is an issue with how flat the pitch is and they are asking me to roll it. I've told them rolling it wont help, it will just make the ground harder. Any advice?
Could you let me know how the round up helps? I''m guessing kills the grass off and the it's easier to mark? Taking it you didn't do that at premier league level! :) Ash
If you can get a hold of a verti-drain that would be the best thing to use to level it, it will open the surface and roll at the same time, you can put a few degrees on heave on it so it levels off
we used 10mm of Primmo-Max in our lines to hold the growth back a touch more than the rest of the pitch but at 300 per 5L i don't see your club buying it ;)
The small amount of roundup will Just turn the grass yellow making it easier to re-mark. You don't want ti kill the grass completely as this will cause all sorts of problems.
Instead of rolling which will compact the ground I would suggest you chain harrow. If you don't have a machine that can pull the chain harrow try using a drag mat behind the mower. If done regularly it will help just depends how rough the ground is.
Spiking will help with drainage but again by the sounds of it the budget is not there to do the maintenance. If there is a maintenance budget then consider end of season work to repair goals mouths etc.
Best this is to talk to the club and see exactly what budget they have for maintenance and improvements. If you want a schedule then please feel free to get in touch.
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