New turf for The Foxes as they begin their push for promotion

County Turf has been used to re-turf the pitch at Leicester City Football Club’s, 32,500-capacity Walkers Stadium to help Sven-Goran Eriksson’s Championship side mount its promotion challenge.

The extreme weather before Christmas, which saw temperatures dropping down to -20º, left the pitches at the club’s Belvoir Drive Training Facility frozen, forcing the squad to use the stadium pitch for training sessions. Increased wear had left the surface badly worn, which led to criticism from Manchester City’s manager Roberto Mancini following an FA Cup third round tie.

The club enlisted the help of Talbot Sports Turf Installation to provide an in-season re-turf. It comes at a crucial point in the season as ‘The Foxes’ are poised within striking distance of a play-off place.

Sean Goodwin of Talbot Turf explained: “The turf that has been introduced is the best available, considering the recent weather conditions. We expect the pitch to play reasonably well initially with further improvements to come. Our priorities are always the levels of the surface, the strength of the turf, the sward density, playability and finally, aesthetics. The pitch has been heavily prepared in readiness for this weekend’s match by our team and it is a credit to them that we’ve been able to achieve this in such a short space of time.”

Scunthorpe-based grower and TGA member, County Turf, supplied 651 rolls of 1.25m wide Rye Sports mix turf, which arrived in the stadium just three hours after being harvested. From that point, Talbot Turf took just 19 hours to complete the installation.

Ed Mowe, Leicester City Football Club’s Head Groundsman, commented: “It was unbelievable. I’m amazed at the level achieved and the standard of the finished playing surface”.