Hockey Pitch Maintenance

The aim is to provide a smooth, even and firm surface, without any undulations, which can provide good grip for turning, running and stick-ball control. The pitch needs to be well drained to avoid water collecting on the surface as this will affect ball roll and the ability of players to gain good traction with the grass sward. Whilst much hockey is often played on synthetic surfaces, especially for national competitions, there are still many grass hockey pitches which need maintaining, with about 800 being identified by Sport England in 2020. The school hockey level of play can be categor

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  Holes in Turf

Undesirable depressions and scrapings within a turf surface. These could be the result of pest damage, especially Rabbit scrapings; Grey Squirrel scrapings; Birds pecking turf; or Foxes digging large holes. It may also be due to vandalism.

  Hollows in Turf

Depressions and dips in a turf surface. A hollow may have gradual or steep gradient and may be large or small in size. Depending upon the extent and nature of a hollow, it can be made even by several means:

  Horticulture

The growing, propagation and maintenance of plants, including fruit and vegetables (although these plant types overlap with agriculture, especially when grown commercially on a large scale). There are many ways of categorising the different aspects of horticulture, but one category might be: gardening (domestic), arboriculture (professional maintenance, although sometimes this is considered a domain on its own within the land-based industry), amenity horticulture (professional maintenance), environmental horticulture (professional biodiversity-sustainability focus), hard landscaping (prof

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  Hybrid Pitch

A sports pitch which has been specially constructed, and which includes reinforcement material to aid stability, increase carrying capacity and improve playing quality. These types of pitches are very expensive to construct and maintain and are usually limited to football and rugby professional clubs. Where the pitch is a cricket pitch then this might be more achievable for lower league clubs, and this will also apply to hybrid tennis courts. See ‘Reinforced Pitch Maintenance’ for guide maintenance requirements of a full-sized hybrid football pitch.

  Incremental Budgeting

An approach to budgeting whereby a manager will increase the previous year’s or period’s actual or planned budget by a certain amount, which might typically be in line with inflation, or similar. It might be used where only minor changes are expected or external factors have had minor impacts on operating costs, which have created a stable business environment. Different budget lines might be adjusted, being increased or decreased due to inflation, salary change, changes in performance expectations, or a gradual change of emphasis in service provision, allowing for a gradual reduction in

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  Index

A score or value which is a combination of other scores or values to provide an indication of an overall state, condition, or trend of a feature, product, service, or similar. An index might provide an indication of the overall quality of a sports surface, which has been assessed and measured using a number of different performance criteria, some of which may be more heavily weighted for relevance than others. By contrast a sustainability index might be used to provide a broad picture from the different economic, social, environmental and other indicators used to measure the sustainability of a service, product, process or activity.

  Information

The provision of context and meaning to data, which is desirable if not essential if well-informed decisions are to be made. For example, the pH of a soil is stated as being 5.2, which is a useful piece of data, however, without the context being known it has limited meaning. If a grass sward consisting of perennial ryegrass was to be grown on this soil then clearly it will struggle, yet by contrast a red fescue / browntop bent sward would be ideally suited to it.

  Injury to Turf

Damage to a grass plant or turf sward which affects its health or appearance. This may be caused by physical, chemical or biological actions or agents.

  Inorganic Waste

Material which is not from animal or plant matter, such as sand and synthetic compounds such as plastics.