Crawley Town: The green, green grass of home

Groundsman Tom Martin is positive about next season after the problems of last season which resulted in Reds suffering a massive backlog of matches due to postponements during the very wet weather.

He revealed: “We had a black layer of silt which capped off sand bands about two inches below the surface”, “This stopped the water draining properly during certain periods of last season.

“It was the worst winter in a long time, especially in terms of the rainfall. The pitch unfortunately couldn’t cope.

“I’ve very positive about next season as the black layer has now been removed. The removal of this was vital because the pitch now drains correctly.

“We decided to take two inches of the silt off the pitch on the first run and then another inch of it off during the second run.

“After this was completed, we spread 120 tonnes of sport sand across the pitch. The pitch was then harrowed to mix the sand into the root zone, which went to depths of four inches before being seeded and raked with a tractor. This all took about four days to complete.

“Since then I have fertilised the pitch and kept the seed damp to help with the germination process. We’ve already started to see the grass come through due to the sunshine and rain since the process.”