IOG Award Winners Are Leagues Ahead
Rigby Taylor catches up with the winners of the IOG Groundman of the Year Award for the Premiership, Championship and League 2
It was a bright, sunny day at the City of Manchester Stadium when Rigby Taylor met with three of this year's IOG Groundsman of the Year winners.
Antony Haywood, of Chesterfield FC, Ewan Hunter, of Nottingham Forest FC and Lee Jackson, of Manchester City FC were all keen to talk about the benefits they had gained from using Rigby Taylor products.
Ewan, who has been head groundsman at Forest's City Ground since 2005, also won the award in 2008. He praised Activate R Liquid saying their pitch had gained tremendous rooting strength and said: "The rooting you get from the Activate R is second to none; you get really good, strong, healthy roots from it. Now I'm also using Guardian, which is coated in the Activate, and which is basically going to save me having to go on with a tractor to spray."
The pitch at Manchester City's stadium was undergoing renovation work after hosting a series of Take That concerts.
Lee was impressed with Magnet Rapide and said: "It can pull you out of a hole because it greens the pitch up quickly. We'd be quite happy putting that on a few days before a game for an instant reaction. If the grass is stressed out with disease or anything, we'll put that on and be confident that once we've used it, it will recover fine."
"The backup we get from Rigby Taylor, not just here but at the other grounds we have as well is second to none," he added.
Chesterfield FC moved to a new 10,600 seat stadium in 2010. Head groundsman Antony Haywood said the new sprinkler system installed there had made his life a little easier and the sand-based turf, although needing more management, was yielding superb results. He added: "We have a fertilizer programme set up with Rigby Taylor each month, which has been effective and the Panama Systemic has worked well for leaf spot and fusarium patch."
It was an interesting experience to meet three of the award winners together. Each was keen to stress that it was a group effort which had made it possible to produce such fine playing surfaces and receiving an award was testament to their teams’ ability as a whole.
With increased playing schedules and the harsh weather experienced at the end of last year, the pressure to prepare consistently outstanding pitches has never been greater, but as Lee Jackson said: “Winning an award such as this makes it all worthwhile.”
