St Andrew’s’ University Park is renowned for its grass pitches
being among the finest in Scotland, winning high praise from visiting
professionals. With such a reputation to live up to it’s important the
synthetic pitches are maintained to equally high standards.
University Park called on the specialist services of Throsk based
Greentech Sportsturf and their GKB equipment for that purpose.
The 3G rubbercrumb pitch, constructed in 2012, is a full size,
floodlit, FIFA 2 Star World Rugby approved Third Generation synthetic pitch,
used for rugby, football, ultimate Frisbee and lacrosse as well as a venue for
regular club fixtures.
The Park’s sand dressed pitch is used as a training and match
venue for a number of sports clubs, including hockey and football, and is home
to a number of community sports programes and weekly sports leagues.
A programme of consistent high quality pre-season maintenance is
essential and Greentech undertook decompaction and deep cleaning of the
surfaces using a GKB Quick Clean for powerful in-depth cleaning and removal of
coarse dirt, small stone particles and loose fibres.
The synthetic turf brush casts contaminated infill material onto a
vibrating screen for removal to a collection container, while dust and fibres
are absorbed by a suction unit to a dust bag.
“We use, in conjunction with the Quick Clean, a GKB Rotobrush with
its extra rigid bristles for deep compaction and that loosens up the infill for
us.” Says Ewan Peddie, Greentech Synthetic Turf Manager.
“Then we run our Quick Clean over the surface, taking out any
contamination from the playing surface, as well as extracting any loose
fibres.”
Moss and algae settlements are often most persistent around the
edges of synthetic sports pitches. These pose the danger of a slippery surface
for players and the Rotobrush also tackles the problem extremely effectively.
“We were
pleased to be called in by St Andrews for their maintenance programme,” add
Ewan, “and equally so for Dundee United FC, where we carried out similar
treatment for their 3G rubber crumb training pitch in October, to get it to a
standard ready for FIFA approval.”
