Following the end of the season, Head Groundsman Chaz Woolnough has given his first update of the summer as the team get hard at work to renovate the pitch at St James Park.
Slightly delayed by the End of Season Awards on the pitch - which were given firm approval from Chaz - work has begun to improve the surface and increase the standard as the club works hard to compete both on and off the pitch.
“The start of the process is to kill the grass so that when it goes into composting it hasn’t got live grass in it, so when it goes away from here, Greendale take it away and process it so it is recycled.
“We will take the surface off and get rid of the black layer which stops drainage, which we had quite a bit of an issue with towards the end of the season. We almost lost a game towards the end of the season, which we really should never had done – it should have coped with that rain, but it is a learning curve for all of us.
“Then we are putting extra drains in the corner with pipes in the same, and secondary drainage all over the pitch. And also for this year we are upgrading the irrigation heads on the pitch to give a more efficient water pre match and at half time and things.
“There has been a lot of planning, and if you want to mix it with the big boys you have to try and create something similar to give us half a chance of getting a few big scalps!”
Watch the full interview with Chaz: