Bristol City FC is a professional football club based in Bristol, England, committed to delivering the highest quality playing surfaces for its players.
To achieve this, the club continuously seeks innovative solutions to ensure both precision and efficiency in their grounds maintenance.
In the summer of 2023, Bristol City FC decided to automate their line marking process with a Turf Tank robot which significantly increased productivity while delivering high precision.
Joe Berry, Head Groundsman at Bristol City FC had previously relied on traditional methods for line marking their pitches, a labor-intensive process requiring substantial time and manpower.
As the team found themselves short-staffed, it became clear they needed a more efficient way to keep up with their growing responsibilities: “We were a member of staff down, and we find it hard to recruit, so I had to come up with more creative ways of potentially getting an extra staff member.”
“It definitely saves us time across the whole site, because people normally will pick up little jobs around the pitches where the Turf Tank is marking,” he added. “So we can keep an eye on the Turf Tank whilst doing jobs that might be potentially put off till last in previous years.
“Probably a half a day’s work on the Turf Tank, which would have been two days’ work with marking for two people.
“If you look at it like that, then it’s saving three and a half days.”
Another important aspect for a professional club is providing the ideal training environment for their players. That’s where training lines play an important role, and with Turf Tank, marking these lines has become effortless.
“We can easily set up training lines using the tablet. Once the layout is saved, it’s as simple as pressing start,” explains Joe.
“Our pitches have multiple tactical lines on, and it was relatively easy to just upload that to the tablet. You have to be patient and maybe go out and do a couple of dry runs once you’ve programmed it to the robot, but once they’re in, it’s saved us countless hours, and it wasn’t too hard at all.”
