Groundsmen prepare sports facilities for new training and playing season

Now, after the end of the frost, heavy equipment has been used to tackle the heaps. Clubs have been allowed to train on the city's sports turf pitches again since the end of March. But before that, the groundsmen from the municipal utilities subsidiary GBM Service GmbH made the training pitches fit for the coming season. And unevenness in the turf, as well as piles of earthworms, not only pose a tripping hazard for the athletes, they also interfere with mowing. That's why the staff are busy maintaining the pitches long before they reopen. In Offenbach, all municipal pitches used by clubs are maintained by GBM.

The approximately 140,000 square meters of municipal sports turf were first mowed and then groomed by the ten GBM groundsmen before the reopening. What is both coat care and attention for horses sounds much more hands-on when it comes to greenery: The metal brushes called harrows are used to remove the moss from the lawn that has spread during the winter. "The pitches have to be dry for this work, otherwise we'll drive in tracks with our equipment," explains Wilfried Seidewitz. He has been working as a groundsman at the city's sports facilities for 25 years. He is now a foreman and still puts his heart and soul into his work.

"It's a wonderful job if you get on well with the clubs, their contacts, the athletes and, above all, the youngsters," says Seidewitz. "When the sports facility looks good and well-maintained, that's also our personal sense of achievement. And after the winter, we always make an effort to restore the facilities as quickly as possible and get them in good condition. We know very well that the athletes, especially the children, would like to train outdoors and on the natural grass pitches again after the winter."

However, maintenance is time-consuming and requires several work steps. After harrowing, the lawns are leveled with a roller. Then some areas are reseeded and lightly rolled. "This prevents the seed from being blown away by the wind and makes it harder for the birds to peck it away," explains the groundsman. The scarifier can also remove unwanted wild growth more evenly on level ground.

"Sports surfaces are heavily used and can become a risk of injury for athletes. That's why we have to continue to look after them intensively throughout the season, even after the basic maintenance at the end of winter," says Wilfried Seidewitz. Maintenance also includes taking soil samples from each natural turf pitch. "We have them analyzed in special laboratories. Then we know which trace elements we need to add as fertilizer." What has been lacking most in recent years is water. And the many hours of sunshine with increasingly high temperatures also put a strain on the carefully tended green spaces. "When the sun is blazing, a lot gets damaged, even if you water a lot - and that really hurts," says Wilfried Seidewitz.

Before the first home games are kicked off, those responsible take another look at all the pitches at the start of each season - also from a safety point of view and in the interests of the spectators: are the fences and soccer goals safe, for example, and could an unlevel manhole cover on the way to the dressing room become a tripping hazard? Only when all preparations have been completed can training and games be played outdoors again.

Anyone interested in the job: The groundsmen at GBM can always do with some help - and they would be delighted to have the first female groundsman in the team. Training in gardening and landscaping would be a good prerequisite. "But we also have colleagues who have only qualified through further and advanced training," says Stefan Schummer, Head of Sports Ground Management at GBM. "What matters most to us is that our groundsmen take their job seriously and that the club members are satisfied with the condition of the sports facilities and pitches."