TYM apiece for Palace
In its biggest deal with distributor Reesink Turfcare yet, Crystal Palace Football Club has chosen TYM tractors for grounds maintenance at both its Selhurst Park stadium and training grounds in Bromley, South East London.
The deal, which includes Toro machinery, comes as the club works toward becoming one of the country’s leading academies. As part of this, the club has invested in its Academy site, expanding its football facilities to include a full-sized pitch and nine additional pitches of varying sizes.
Bruce Elliot, head of grounds and estates, explains: “The club is investing a lot in its facilities at the moment, with a new stand being built at the stadium and the academy training ground expanding. It made sense, therefore, that with this development and improvement of the facilities, we would upgrade and expand our turfcare machinery, too.
“We first added Toro and TYM to our fleet in 2016 and have been consistently impressed by the work they’ve done, so we decided to make our biggest purchase yet at the end of last year,” continues Bruce. “We needed to replace some older machines at the academy and we also wanted to expand the fleet at our main training ground and stadium.”
And it’s certainly a large investment, with the club having purchased a TYM T293 tractor and the Toro ProCore 648 for the stadium and TYM T393 tractor, alongside two Greensmaster TriFlex Hybrid 3420 mowers and a tractor-mounted ProCore 864 which will be used on the T393 for aeration at the main training ground. A Toro Reelmaster 3575-D mower and Workman MDX utility vehicle for the academy grounds are included in the deal.
Having seen TYM and Toro in action at the club for several years already, the combination of the two was the first choice for Bruce when looking to expand the fleet: “We’ve always found TYM tractors to be reliable and adaptable, with a definite bonus being that they have such an extensive range. The fact that they work so well in conjunction with Toro for things like aeration is a winning combination.”
With the new machines in use across the grounds, now, Bruce is looking to the future: “We’re confident that we’ll be able to rely on TYM and Toro to provide the excellent standard of turfcare maintenance we need and it’s highly likely we will be investing in more Toro and TYM as the club’s facilities expand.”
