Head groundsman Nathan Scarff feels there’s room for improvement when it comes to Derby County’s already excellent playing surface.
Derby’s pitch was highly commended by the EFL in their annual Grounds Team of the Year awards back in April, but Scarff is determined to have it in even better shape for the 2017/18 season.
The Pride Park Stadium pitch, as well as several more at the Training Centre, were revamped last summer using the new British reinforced natural grass SISGRASS, after the club linked up with SIS Pitches.
The installation of the SISGRASS pitch saw Derby become the first club in the UK to use such a surface at a competitive level with others, including Premier League side AFC Bournemouth, now following suit.
SISGRASS involves injecting, or ‘stitching’, more than 240 million lengths of synthetic yarn directly into a pitch – a total of 150 miles – which provide a critical anchor point for natural grass roots to bind onto.
Speaking to RamsTV recently Scarff, who was named as the Brian Clough Award winner for 2016/17 for his continued high standard of work, feels there’s scope to make the pitch even better next time around.
Work started last week to get the pitch ready for the 2017/18 campaign and Scarff is relishing the prospect of producing another top surface for Gary Rowett’s side come August.
He said: “I would give the pitch eight out of ten for the season.
“We had a few hold-ups last year and I was stressing out a little bit about it all being ready.
“The first month and a half was a little bit behind where I wanted it to be, but the pitch really came into its own in the second half of the season.
“Fixtures played ball for us pretty much and we didn’t get too many bad games in terms of the weather. We had extra matches for the Under-23s, Under-18s and the Academy, which is of course is a positive.
“All told, it has gone pretty well. But, as I said, I’ll give it eight out of ten – we can do better and there’s always room to improve.”
He added: “Everyone has been really complimentary about the pitch and Derby has one of the best set-ups going in the country.
“As far as I am concerned, I want nothing but the best. If the club didn’t want the best, I wouldn’t be here. Second isn’t good enough for me!”
Last summer’s project, with the addition of SISGRASS, was the biggest seen involving the Pride Park pitch for many years.
On top of that, new floodlights and a brand-new PA system were installed – on top of general required maintenance around the stadium.
This time around the workload isn’t quite to the same intense level, but the quest for excellence remains the same.
With more growing time, Scarff hopes that is something which will prove to be beneficial further down the line when it comes to the pitch itself.
Scarff explained: “We removed all the grass, took out the fibre-sand root-zone, took out the lower-root zone, the irrigation and under-soil heating last summer and everything that went back in was brand new; it was all state of the art stuff.
“This summer, the grass has been stripped off and we’ll have new top grass in from new seed and fertiliser.
“A slightly longer growing time will help and we’ll also refine some of the fertilising too, to make sure everything is in harmony.
“With the SISGRASS stitching remaining on show, it won’t look like much has changed for those that see it at the moment.
“It will look pretty much bang on from six weeks old, but we’ll have around three weeks after that until the Hoffenheim game at the end of July. We’ve got plenty of time this year.
“There’s lots of work going on around the ground as well so it’s going to be another busy summer!”
