3 Steps to Renovating a Goalmouth

With the abrupt end to all football and rightfully so, many of us will have started or began to think about Summer renovations. If you are like me then you are probably a little worried!In this blog we look at Renovating a Goalmouth.

At Chorley FC I think it’s fair to say we  totally rely on match day income, no games now will have a massive affect on what Reno will get done, this year we have spent £5000 on the pitch, this included last years renovation, aeration and feeding programmes.So you can see we don’t have much to spend on the pitch, so it’s essential that the little jobs I try to do myself.

One job I do religiously is to dig up the goalmouth,so I thought l would  share with you how I went about it.

Step One-

First of all I will mark out the area l Intend to dig up, then I will try to dig down a good 12” as you can see from the picture the soil is so compact.

Along with our allotted amount of league games the first team can train on the pitch twice a week weather depending ,so the goalmouths take some hammering.

Step Two-

l will then work the sand into the sods I have turned over and try to get a fine tilth of again around 12”. Once I have something to work with I begin to level it out with a lute, this year I’ve tried to leave a little camber in the middle to help the water drain away from middle of the goal mouth.

Step Three-

Once I’ve gained the level I need I tried the soil to firm it up a little, before then raking the surface, adding the seed (100 grams a square metre) then again raking over with springbok to cover the majority of the seed.

There is the option to apply a pre seed fertiliser at this stage also.

Aftercare-

The final bit is to add the germination sheet and to water in,with this weeks weather set to be nice then it’s important that under the sheet we keep plenty of moisture. The sheet will help to hold the moisture in along with allowing the surface to breathe.The sheet will stay on for around 7-10 days acting like a mini greenhouse to help get the seed germinated that little quicker, also stops the pigeons from eating the seed.

I will look to cut once the new seed is 35 mm and work it down to my regular cutting height of 30 mm.

When there is some clear direction on when the games will restart then we will look to see what we can do regarding renovations, again it’s looking like a very basic one of scarifying, sanding, seeding and vertidraining.

But for now it’s all about keeping safe and healthy.

Ben

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