Background

Ashby Ivanhoe FC was established in 1948 and moved to their current ground in 2012. In 2018 they received the news that their landlord had gone into administration, and that the pitches that they had made their home would be put up for sale. This left the club in the awkward position of risking its future on the whims of any subsequent owner or trying to take hold of the situation and purchasing the land outright to secure the club’s future. Though this was an unwelcome situation to find themselves in, the club management’s commitment to the long-term success of the club provided the necessary drive to facilitate purchase the land in April 2020. 

With the foundations of the team’s future now fundamentally connected to their Packington Road ground, the club began to consider investments that would have the most meaningful impact on its future. The club is ambitious, so the breadth of its plans is admirably wide, but they identified a new First Team pitch drainage system as one of the most fundamental requirements for the successful growth of the club – not only improving the quality of the playing surface, which is vital to attract and keep quality players, but also to be confident of regular and growing matchday revenue streams from a fixture-list that would hopefully not continue to be decimated by cancellations due to waterlogging.

Worsening Waterlogging

This situation became intolerable in the 2023-24 season when ground conditions on the site’s heavy clay soil deteriorated rapidly during the very wet October, and successive postponements forced the club to enter a ground-sharing arrangement with another club, fifteen miles from its own ground, in November. As this situation was obviously unsustainable in the long-term the club sought funding from the Football Foundation, and expert third-party advice from several sources, including the Grounds Management Association (GMA). With Turfdry’s name cropping up time and time again, the club eventually got in touch with the firm to discuss the potential improvements to its home ground. Impressed with both the technical superiority of Hydraway Sportsdrain – as well as the passion and enthusiasm of Turfdry’s team – Ashby Ivanhoe FC was convinced that Turfdry was the ideal contractor to deliver optimally cost-effective drainage improvements to its First Team pitch.

Funding Issues

The fact that the Turfdry Drainage System is only available from a single source is problematic for some funding bodies that prefer to support projects where identical drainage schemes have been put out to competitive tender. However, strong support for the proposed Turfdry scheme from the GMA, which provides technical guidance to the FA, and which has various Regional Pitch Advisors that had been involved with successful Turfdry Drainage Systems, helped to successfully deliver the funding.

Planning The Works

It would have been ideal to start work on the AIFC pitch in April or May 2024, but the funding was not yet in place and, due to the very wet spring, the pitch was still too soft to get machinery onto it without causing further damage to the existing turf.

Drainage Installation

With demand for the Turfdry Drainage System being high, the works at AIFC did not actually commence until 5th August. The drainage system consisted of Hydraway Sportsdrain installed diagonally at 2.5m spacing, connecting to 100mm plastic carrier drains running behind the western goal-line and southern touchline, to an inspection chamber off the SW corner of the pitch.  As the southern touchline rises from both corners to the halfway line, the 100mm carrier drain had to be laser-graded to achieve an acceptable smooth fall to the chamber at the SW corner. From there, a 150mm twin-wall outfall pipe runs to an open ditch at the southern boundary of the land owned by AIFC.

The drainage system took two weeks to install (completion on 16th August), which included re-seeding the drain lines after a layer of blinding sand was added to the gravel backfill above the Hydraway and plastic pipe drains. As demonstrated by aerial photographs the drainage system was installed with the absolute minimum of disturbance, with the Hydraway drains being installed in trenches only 65mm wide.

Re-establishing Grass on the Drain lines

Following Turfdry’s recommendations, AIFC set-up a temporary travelling sprinkler system to water the drain lines to encourage germination and growth of grass on the narrow trench lines. Whilst this was initially very useful, the weather turned dramatically in September, with the nearest Met Office Weather Station recording 128.4mm of rainfall, making it the wettest of the previous 55 months!

Drainage Performance

The wet September continued into a wet October with over 20mm of rain falling on 1st October, when a site inspection and short video was made showing no standing water on the pitch and the outfall chamber gushing water from both outfall pipes

Returning the Pitch to Use

The first competitive game on the pitch for eleven months was scheduled for a night match against United Counties Football League Premier Division North leaders Eastwood CFC, for Tuesday 8th October 2024 (54 days from completion). There was torrential rain during the day and past-Club Chairman Dave Morris was convinced that the game would be postponed despite the new drainage system, until he went to the ground and saw how well the pitch looked. The referee had no hesitation about passing it fit for play, when other scheduled local league matches scheduled for that night fell victim to waterlogging, and Dave stated later that he was astounded at how well the pitch played that night and has subsequently continued to do so.

The rain had eased off in late afternoon but returned with venom after kick-off, as demonstrated by photographic evidence. Not only was the drainage system a resounding success but the team managed a thumping 5-2 victory over the league leaders. This was the first of four games played on the new pitch in only 15 days – all of which were wins! 

The importance of being able to play the clubs home games at home has been transformational, as explained by manager Andy Gray.