Everything groundsman Ben Bowen has said about mammoth Edgar Street pitch overhaul

The Edgar Street pitch after the mammoth overhaul

Major pitch works at Edgar Street have taken a big step forward, with the new drainage system now completed and attention switching to rebuilding the playing surface.

The project follows a season of disruption caused by waterlogging issues, which led to postponements and the relocation of three home games to Worcestershire.

The overhaul at Edgar Street Stadium is a full reset of the pitch structure, with earlier problems in the old drainage system uncovered during the works, including blocked and collapsed pipes that had contributed to the winter issues.

With drainage work complete, the old surface has been stripped and a new base laid. Seeding and fertilising have also been completed and the pitch returned to groundsman Ben Bowen.

Bowen, uncle of West Ham's Jarrod Bowen who is part-funding the work, has been sharing daily updates.

Here they are in full:

Day 1

The start of it all(finally)

Sprinklers all dug out/posts down/nets away

Day 2

Abit of sprinkler repairs (niggly things what has broke over last couple of weeks)

Materials arriving

Day 3

Not a huge amount going on today

Bits and bobs all tied up now

More sand coming in

Machinery being delivered

Day 4

We have action (geeeeeet up like)

1st lot of trenches going in

Laser levels done

Pipes arrived

All sand arrived

All stone arrived

👊👊👊👊👊

Day 5

Not been there today

By the looks pipes going down

5m centres are in

Day 6

Jon Morgan(kmm hire)Usk is our contractor doing the work at Hereford FC

Main carrier pipe is in

Trenches going in for new drainage

Pipe and stone going in

Full steam ahead

On target

👊👊👊👊👊👊👊👊

Day 7

More drainage going in

Half pitch done now

Had a chat with Jon earlier he says it’s all going well

Full steam ahead

Day 8

Not been there today been bizzy with some seeding pitches

By the looks on the camera drainage is nearly finished (I think,wouldn’t have a chuffin clue)anyway Jon is cracking on with it

👊👊👊👊👊

Day 9

Been to see Jon today nearly finished with drainage

All pipes in and connected

All stone in

Just started topping drain lines up with root zone (sand and part soil mix)shouldn’t be far off done tomorrow night with new drainage system

👊👊👊👊

Day 10

Not been there today so not much to report on it,

What Jon was saying yesterday he wanted drainage done today ready for stripping pitch off Monday

Will have a gander down there tomorrow

Day 11/12

Forgot to put something up last night

Anyway

Drainage all finished(interesting what they found with the old drainage)no wonder we had major problems

So today they started stripping off the pitch

2 passes taken off about 30mm(ish)depth

Couple more days should be all done

Then the headache will start🤯🤯🤯

Day 13

pitch all stripped off

Powerharrow top surface

Verti drained

Started top dressing

A fair shift from Jon and geth

End of the tunnel is in sight

Day 14

Last of the sand went on

They have prepared seed bed ready for seeding and ferting tomorrow

This time tomorrow should be all done

Now that is a monster of a shift from Jon and geth fair play to them

Day 15

There we have it by tonight pitch will be complete

Levelled off

Seeded and fertilised

What a hell of a shift Jon and geth has done wow!!

Sprinklers getting changed over weekend(by me)

Couple of sprinklers and electrics being sorted next week(don’t worry they still all work just up grading)Matthew Gwynne (cmagri)

Final update

Well there she is our old girl is back in my hands

This has been a major major job on our pitch

New drainage installed

Complete revovations(don’t think it’s ever had this much done on it)

I feel de stressed now

Big thanks too Jon and geth from kkk hire you boys have put some sort of hours/ graft into this and made it right for us 👊👊👊👊

Anyway that will do from me with the pitch updates for a while

See ya all at the back post soon

😍JB20😍