New Head Groundsman Nick Hyndman aims to deliver a ‘pitch to be proud of’ as renovation work begins at Highbury ahead of the new season,
Nick Hyndman has said that the renovation of the Highbury Stadium turf is under way.
The new Head Groundsman explained that the club are using a process called Koroing, which strips the old surface off, getting rid of all unwanted species of grass that have grown.
“Basically, we do a process called Koroing where we strip the vegetation off the pitch.
“We have a machine that goes over the pitch and it will strip the top 15 millimetres of the old vegetation.
“We are just cleaning any of the rubbish out really, the old matter and unwanted species on the surface.
“You get a build-up of organic matter, you get some of the unwanted grass species in and that’s part of the reason it looks so good because we do this sort of process every year to keep it looking fresh.”
Nick added that they are hoping for mixed weather throughout the next week so they will start seeing green grass grow at Highbury again within a week.
“We are hoping for lots of sun and hot temperatures mainly but need some rain as well.”
“I think we’re looking six days after seeding really. We’ll set a green haze on then we can crack on with our fertilizer program to get it nice and strong for the first game.”
The grounds staff revealed that the coaching staff and the players have a massive say on how they want the pitch to look on a match day.
“They have a massive influence, whether they want the grass short to keep plenty of water on it to get the surface nice and zippy so it slides along it.
“It could hold up the ball if hr turf is too dry so a lot of the watering for matches is purely down to the management requests really.”
Nick explained that the whole reason behind this process is to see the side perform at Highbury and how it gives a sense of pride to keep the presentation to the same standard throughout the season.
“That’s what it’s all about, prepping the best surface we can for the players and the management. We take a lot of pride in the work we do here so it’s a big thing, the presentation of the pitch.
“There’s a lot of man hours behind the scenes that people don’t really see, not just from me but from all the lads, the whole team.
“We have to do stuff at the right time, the right fertilizer programs, the right aeration techniques, the maintenances."