St Andrew's' University Park is renowned for its grass pitches being among the finest in Scotland, winning high praise from visiting professionals. With such a reputation to live up to it is important the synthetic pitches are always maintained up to equally high standards.
University Park called on the specialist services of Throsk based Greentech Sportsturf and their GKB equipment for that purpose. The 3G rubber crumb pitch, constructed in 2012, is a full size, floodlit, FIFA 2 Star World Rugby approved Third Generation synthetic pitch, used for rugby, football, ultimate Frisbee and lacrosse as well as a venue for regular club fixtures. The park's sand-dressed pitch is used as a training and match venue for a number of sports clubs, including hockey and football, and is home to a number of community sports programmes and weekly sports leagues.
A programme of consistent high-quality pre-season maintenance is essential and Greentech undertook de-compaction and deep cleaning of the surfaces using a GKB Quick Clean for powerful in-depth cleaning and removal of coarse dirt, small stone particles and loose fibres. The synthetic turf brush casts contaminated infill material onto a vibrating screen for removal to a collection container, while dust and fibres are absorbed by a suction unit to a dust bag.
'We use, in conjunction with the Quick Clean, a GKB Rotobrush with its extra rigid bristles for deep compaction and that loosens up the infill for us,' says Ewan Peddie, Greentech Synthetic Turf Manager. “Then we run our Quick Clean over the surface, taking out any contamination from the playing surface, as well as extracting any loose fibres' Moss and algae settlements are often most persistent around the edges of synthetic sports pitches. These pose the danger of a slippery surface for players.
'We were pleased to be called in by St Andrews for their maintenance programme, and equally so for Dundee United FC, where we carried out similar treatment for their 3G rubber crumb training pitch in October, to get it to a standard ready for FIFA approval.,' concluded Ewan.
