Added: 17TH JULY 2024
Turfdry's team at work installing the new Hydraway Sportsdrain pitch drainage system at Aspull RFC.
Located just a short distance outside of Wigan, Aspull RFC is a bustling local rugby club boasting 15 teams across various age groups. With so much rugby being played, it is no wonder than their facilities have struggled to keep up with the demand for game-time, especially given the increasing levels of rainfall in an already-notoriously wet part of the country. Despite the best efforts of the club’s ground staff, they have been struggling in recent winters to keep the pitches playable, facing cancelled fixtures following failed pitch inspections. In addition to disrupting the season – and potentially incurring fines from their leagues – fixture cancellations can also diminish the social side of a local sports club, as well as put a dent in their budget with less demand for the bar facilities that help to fund it.
With the effects of climate change set to continue unabated, the club resolved to invest in its home ground through the installation of a new drainage system that would help guarantee a higher volume of playable fixtures throughout the year. To this end, they contacted Turfdry, whose great success providing transformative improvements to existing rugby pitches made them a natural choice for a club looking to maximise the value of their investment in seeking meaningful, long-term development.
Although the club had hoped to extend the improvements across its whole site to cover both pitches, initial site visits revealed significant waterlogging issues. Central to Turfdry’s philosophy is the cost-effective use of resources to deliver meaningful results, and so the firm advised the club that its budget might be spread too thin if the scope of the works were too broad. Whilst a topographical survey of the entire site was completed, and drainage design work completed for both pitches, the club opted to follow Turfdry’s advice and focus its remedial efforts on the main pitch, as making slight improvements to both pitches could well still see weeks go by without fixtures – or revenue.
To this end, a system of Hydraway Sportsdrain laterals were installed at 4m spacing, connecting to 100mm carrier drains running parallel with the southern and western edges of the pitch. These met at a chamber that also connected a new outfall drain from the car park surface water drain, before outfalling into the woods to the south-west of the pitches. Trenches were backfilled with gravel and then sand, prior to re-seeding.
The drainage design for Aspull RFC, which saw Hydraway Sportsdrain laterals installed at 4m spacing, connecting to two plastic pipe carrier drains that outfall via a new chamber into a pond to the west of the site.
Despite a generally smooth installation, some suitably torrential rainfall proved trying, not only inducing very soft ground conditions that made it difficult to complete the job to Turfdry’s usual standards of tidiness, but also threatening to wash out drainage trenches before they were completed. Whilst this made for some frustrations for the Turfdry team, the club nevertheless responded positively to the great efforts made to keep disruption of the pitch to a minimum, and offered support and thanks to the installation team throughout. Having experienced the site’s heavy rain first-hand, we can certainly see why the pitches needed bolstering with a new drainage system, but have no doubt that the club will be delighted with its investment come winter-time, and look forward to checking in with them again later in the year.
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