Sheffield University Hockey Club

Following the intra mural semi-finals last Tuesday a few members of the club met with Simon Frost, Julie Byrd (who deals with the branding of Sport Sheffield), Andy Cox and Ben Baldwin. Our arguments about the sub standard quality of the pitch were accepted and it was agreed that both sides would work together as one and push for a better carpet to be laid. Things seemed like they were on the up here and that the coverage you guys, our club members, had gained via social media had really done a great job. One final point made at this meeting was that the top pitch previously needed to be multi-purpose due to the demand. However with the 3G, a multi-purpose is no longer in so much demand and a more hockey specific carpet is viable. The roller coaster was climbing!

Having gone our separate ways we started to look at costs and funding as our initial figure we quoted was surprisingly low as far as Simon was concerned. This is where the roller coaster began to plateaux. Despite many possible funding streams open for investigation, the cost of the work needed to be done was 4-5 times what we initially thought following a miscommunication of information. The figures that came from both Desso (who laid the current top pitch) and Tiger Turf (who’ve laid pitches such as Leeds Uni and Leeds Met) were both equally high and following a meeting with the latter, it was apparent that just laying a new carpet was not possible as a new shock pad would also be required. The roller coaster is dropping.

However, today the coaster started to rise again. Another meeting with Ben Baldwin and Simon Frost along with our very own “Committed Pitch Committee” set things into action. Funding is being explored from various sources with a plan to resurface the pitch for the 2013/14 season. Obviously, this leaves us with a year on the current carpet, but with needing so much funding to come in so quickly it is a really pie in the sky idea to suggest we could get something done for next season. There are numerous options being looked at by Simon regards trying to speed up the current surface. One idea includes reducing the amount of sand but this is unproven and a final decision will only be made following a meeting with Desso about the current state of the pitch as it lies.

We aim to keep people up to date and reduce the problems of poor communication that may have happened in the past.