This coming Saturday’s (15th September) D&W1N match has been switched from Minety to Royal Wootton Bassett, kick off 3pm. We are hoping to re-arrange the D&W3N match to Chippenham but this has yet to be confirmed.
Minety pitches have been infamous for their lack of drainage and tendency to disappear under water after wet spells. In order to try and prevent this happening again all three pitches were “mole ploughed” immediately after the end of last season. A spike like thing is driven into the ground and then dragged along by a tractor, opening up the surface and breaking up the thick layer of clay that the pitches sit on. It’s a tried and tested way of improving the drainage of sports grounds.
Sadly, no one could have accurately predicted the extraordinary spell of very hot and dry weather that we had over the summer. Rather than gently closing up, the fissures made by the plough actualy increased in size as the clay dried out. With gaping holes in our pitches large enough to put your hand down, any matches played would be extremely dangerous for the players.
£2 coin to show size of fissures
We hope to take delivery of several tons of special sand, a type dredged up from the bottom of the River Severn, that doesn’t clog or bind. This will be drilled into the cracks in the ground in the next two weeks, filling the cracks and also providing us with a basic drainage system for all three Minety pitches. Sadly, we are not alone in having to take remedial action on our pitches and there is a delay in sourcing the sand, hence the need to swap some fixtures around.
As soon as work begins we’ll be sending down a staff reporter to take some pictures and capture a notable event in the club’s history – drainage!
The latest news on the club’s fixtures will always be carried on this site, so keep checking to keep up to date.