High standards at Leigh Sports Village
Keith Porter – Head Groundsman at Leigh Sports Village in Greater Manchester – has praised ICL for meeting his exceptionally high standards.
Leigh Sports Village is a multi-use sports, retail, education and housing development in Leigh, Greater Manchester, in the North-West of England. At the centerpiece of the development is a 12,000-capacity stadium which is home to professional rugby league team Leigh Centurions and Manchester United FC U23’s.
“We have a very high level of sport played here and teams like Bayern Munich come here to train occasionally, so presentation and the standard of pitches is very important. When we see the likes of Bayern asking to come back and train here, it means we are doing something right. It’s an honour really,” says Keith.
In helping Keith achieve the excellent standards he insists on, he relies upon a range of ICL products.
“I’ve been using ICL products for a number of years now, all throughout my career from being a contractor and a groundsman to where I am now at Leigh Sports Village. I use the products throughout the whole year from pitch renovation all the way through the playing season, until we scrape the pitch off and renovate it again.”
During the establishment phase he’ll apply Sportsmaster Mini CRF Start 19-19-5 followed by Sierrablen Plus Active 19-5-18 to give a consistent and healthy balanced growth over a three month period. Two weeks later and Keith will apply SeaMax soluble seaweed.
Commenting on his decision to use these products Keith said: “On a site like this, which is extremely free draining, I prefer to use the coated products such as the Sierrablen and Sportsmaster CRF ranges. This is because they have a coated nitrogen which releases it nice and slowly and gives me less peaks and troughs. The SeaMax then starts to help bring out a nice green colour and improves the overall quality of the turf.”
As part of his turf programme, Keith also relies on Primo Maxx – the market leading plant growth regulator.
“Primo Maxx is a valuable tool for us here on such a big site and it’s one of the major parts of our programme – the fact that the product is so popular shows you just how good it is. We spray it on the pitches and the lawns and it slows the grass growth right down which is good because you don’t want to be cutting grass constantly.
“All of the ICL products are good products but when you use them all together as part of a programme they become even better products. It’s tough to pick the best product out of all of them because they all do a great job for me and that’s why I use them.”
