The season may be over, but there's no rest for West
Ham United Head Groundsman Dougie Robertson and his team as they
work tirelessly to get all the pitches perfect again in time for
August.
"We're starting work on the pitch at Upton Park hopefully on Monday, weather depending. It should take about seven or eight days to do.
"There are going to be a lot of changes but they won't be seen. It's all underground work. Weather depending, it should all be working within a couple of weeks.
"The training ground pitches are now completed, we're just waiting on the grass growing. There's building work starting on Monday to do internal changes at the training ground, which we're involved in.
"The drainage work has been done at the training ground. The Little Heath ones were fully stripped off, re-sanded and the drainage work was done. We've just done the reseeding, which should be through by the middle of next week and we start cutting a week later."
Dougie and his team are used to working tirelessly behind the scenes, and he described a typical week's work for the ground staff during the season.
"We'll be at the training ground Monday morning to set up for training and find out what the team's movements are that week and if they're training at the stadium at any point.
"We'll go from there to Little Heath to set up a game and find out the training schedule for that week for the youth team. Then we're at the stadium two or three times a week with Danny, setting up ready for the game. We'll be here majority of the day on Friday, doing the final preparations.
"If it was a game on Saturday, we'd be cutting the pitch on the Saturday at about six in the morning and then we'd continue watering it through the course of the day. It would depend on how Alan Curbishley wanted it.
"The hours are quite long. Now we have the lighting units we have to bring them back into the stadium, depending on the time of year, or back onto the concourse.
"On a night game, we'd be looking at getting out between 12 and one in the morning from being in at half-six/seven in the morning and back in at 7 the next day."
But for Dougie, who is in his tenth year at Upton Park, being in the top five pitches in the League last season and seeing the Hammers ensure Premier League status was reward enough.
"Everyone found that little bit extra when things weren't going so well on the pitch," he said. "When things were asked they were done straight away, rather than at the next available slot. I'd like to think we helped in some way."
"We're starting work on the pitch at Upton Park hopefully on Monday, weather depending. It should take about seven or eight days to do.
"There are going to be a lot of changes but they won't be seen. It's all underground work. Weather depending, it should all be working within a couple of weeks.
"The training ground pitches are now completed, we're just waiting on the grass growing. There's building work starting on Monday to do internal changes at the training ground, which we're involved in.
"The drainage work has been done at the training ground. The Little Heath ones were fully stripped off, re-sanded and the drainage work was done. We've just done the reseeding, which should be through by the middle of next week and we start cutting a week later."
Dougie and his team are used to working tirelessly behind the scenes, and he described a typical week's work for the ground staff during the season.
"We'll be at the training ground Monday morning to set up for training and find out what the team's movements are that week and if they're training at the stadium at any point.
"We'll go from there to Little Heath to set up a game and find out the training schedule for that week for the youth team. Then we're at the stadium two or three times a week with Danny, setting up ready for the game. We'll be here majority of the day on Friday, doing the final preparations.
"If it was a game on Saturday, we'd be cutting the pitch on the Saturday at about six in the morning and then we'd continue watering it through the course of the day. It would depend on how Alan Curbishley wanted it.
"The hours are quite long. Now we have the lighting units we have to bring them back into the stadium, depending on the time of year, or back onto the concourse.
"On a night game, we'd be looking at getting out between 12 and one in the morning from being in at half-six/seven in the morning and back in at 7 the next day."
But for Dougie, who is in his tenth year at Upton Park, being in the top five pitches in the League last season and seeing the Hammers ensure Premier League status was reward enough.
"Everyone found that little bit extra when things weren't going so well on the pitch," he said. "When things were asked they were done straight away, rather than at the next available slot. I'd like to think we helped in some way."