After a busy week of community football to end the season, the Northampton Town pitch at Sixfields is now undergoing its summer renovation work.
Head Groundsman Paul Knowles took us through the work that will be taking place.
“This week the pitch is being scarified,” he said.
“That cleans things up and removed any bits we don’t want there. After that we will add 80 tonnes of top dressing and then vertidrain the pitch. This puts a lot of holes deep in to the pitch to help with the drainage.
“We are doing a bit of extra work on the drainage this summer in the penalty area at the south end of the pitch. A couple of times last season we felt that didn’t quite drain as we wanted it to and we will do some extra work on that area this year.
“The pitch is then sanded and re-seeded and then it needs about six and a half weeks or so of growing time with the aim of having it ready for use by early to mid July.”
The groundstaff have also been working on the club’s training pitches up at Moulton and these are a few weeks ahead and on target to be ready for the start of pre-season.
“The pitches have been growing there for about a week and a half now,” he said.
“We will start cutting them in the next couple of weeks but they are on target to be ready for when the players need them for pre-season training.”