The Institute of Groundsmanship, in conjunction with Sport Wales have run four training courses for football and rugby club groundsman across Wales.
The courses were attended by rugby representatives from Swansea Uplands, Seven Sisters, Gorseinon, Waunarlwydd, Tonmawr, B P Llandarcy, Aberystwyth, Brynmawr and Taffs Well.
The course content was quite in depth, covering the regular in season maintenance of the pitch ie cutting, brushing, aeration/spiking, marking out from scratch each season using the Pythagoras theory of right angled triangles (3,4,5, method), replacing/repairing divots, over seeding bare/worn areas and so on.
They also covered the renovation programme of work at the end of the season which included the control of weeds/pests/diseases, aeration, the application of seed blends, top dressing types of sandy loams for winter sports pitches and the re-levelling of the low, high wear areas.
All in all, there was quite a bit of information for the delegates to learn and we hope that the IOG will run future courses in Wales in the future. For information on the IOG visit http://www.iog.org