The pitches were officially ‘put to bed’ for the season on Thursday 10 September. The contractor D Watson was hired to come and scarify the pitches, gather up the residue of ‘dust’ and dead grass, sew new grass seed and add a covering of fresh loam to help the new grass to grow ready for next year. In previous seasons the Club has done this by hand with a team of volunteers taking all weekend but this year the job was made a lot easier and was wrapped up in a couple of hours. The contractor, who also works for Lord’s and Edgbaston, had lots of praise for Andy Smith’s groundsmanship and for the Garby pitches, and he reckoned that they were some of the best he’s seen! Andy will continue to mow the pitches at fairly regular intervals throughout the closed season to keep them in tip-top shape ready for 2016.

The contractor with a handful of the ‘dust’ that is removed after the pitches have been scarified