Hard Porous Pitch Maintenance: 05. Routine Maintenance

The maintenance activities needed to ensure that an even, water-bound, non-disintegrating, surface was consistently produced required a regular level of input.

Maintenance work would ideally be carried out when the profile was moist – not too dry and not too wet. The profile should not be allowed to become dust dry as it then became prone to wind blow and being more easily disturbed by play. This is because the lack of profile moisture was no longer binding the material together. In addition, the surface will start to break down into dust if machinery is used.

Controlling the moisture content of a hard porous surface was therefore a critical requirement in being able to produce a satisfactory playing surface. Where there was not adequate moisture within the surface to aid maintenance, especially rolling, then irrigation would be needed.

A power unit, such as a compact tractor or a SISIS Auto-trac, would have been considered the workhorse for a full-sized area (typically 105m x 65m, or thereabouts), but hand tools would have been used the most frequently for majority of the reinstatement work, which was often minor surface disturbance following usage.

When using a power unit it was essential to be diligent when steering it, keeping wheels (with grassland tyres not agricultural ones) in a straight line, travelling at a steady and not too fast a pace, and turning in relatively wide arcs so as not to disturb the surface, often needing to reverse back and forth a few times to get a correct realignment of the machine before proceeded back down the pitch.

The use of a power unit would only take place after localised areas had been repaired by hand and would mostly have been brushing or drag-matting for minor damage and luting for more severe damage. A wide range of hand tools, cheap but effective, need to be made available to ground staff so they can attend to the finer and routine remedial works, which will typically be each day. Hand tools will generally include a border fork, wheelbarrow, lute, shovel, rake, a landscape rake, rubber-headed rake, metal spring-tine rake, besom broom, hard broom, hand roller (~100kg) and watering can.

Damage was primarily the cutting up of a pitch which displaced the material, and the extent of the displacement was what basically determined if it was classed as minor or severe damage. Routine scuff marks and light scouring of the surface were readily repaired by just raking, a light top-dressing and then firming. Any coarse particles which were left on the surface needed to be swept up and removed.

The amount and type of work was very much dependent on prior maintenance activities, especially how effectively they had been carried out, as well as usage that had taken place and the prevailing weather conditions.

The routine maintenance activities were:
• Brushing.
• Drag-matting.
• Luting.
• Irrigation, if required.
• Rolling.
• Hand forking of localized wet, compacted, or severely damaged areas.
• Wire tine raking / scarification (by hand).