Guildford Hockey Centre, 'Water guns redundant at pitch opening',

14th March 2003

Torrential downpours of rain accompanied the Earl and Countess of Wessex for the formal opening of The Guildford Hockey Centre on March 7th 2003. The centre is part of the English Institute of Sport.

Guildford Hockey Club are one of the UK’s top Premier League clubs and the conversion of their sand filled pitch to water based was funded under the World Class Water Programme. Under this programme Sport England and English Hockey are ensuring that all top class English players will be used to playing on pitches of this calibre.

The existing pitch has been enlarged and converted to water based, also a second floodlit pitch has been built using a sand dressed carpet with LSR yarn. The low slip resistance provides properties kinder to the growing limbs of Broadwater School children where the Guildford and Godalming Hockey Club is based.

The contractor, G Thornton (Contracts) Ltd, utilised Aquaturf for the main water based pitch and Premier 20 for the sand dressed pitch.

The contract, which was valued at approximately £750,000, was completed within a very tight schedule. Work began at the end of July 2002 and the water based pitch was first used at the end of October, the sand dressed pitch by the end of November 2002.

The design incorporated watering of the water based pitch by six rain guns. The water based pitch also includes a sheltered warm-up/team talk area and a video stand with electronic scoreboard.
The Sports Construction Consultancy are proud to have project managed this prestigious project on behalf of the club and their partners.

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