Pitches Go ‘Pro’
At St Joseph’s College
Thanks to two new Toro mowers
Toro machinery is trusted to maintain
many premier-league quality pitches,
from those at Leeds Rhinos Rugby Club’s
Headingley Stadium to West Ham United
FC’s London Stadium, and has now been
brought onto the superb sporting facilities
at St Joseph’s College. The Ipswich-
based school purchased two Toros, a
Groundsmaster 3280-D and a Reelmaster
5510-D, as well as a TYM T433 compact
tractor to cover the 60-acre site and make
the pitches look “professional” for its
annual rugby festival.
St Joseph’s College Rugby Festival is
a 30-year-old event, which brings the
country’s top 16 rugby playing schools
and colleges together every October in
one of the biggest school tournaments
of its kind. The event will be streamed
live and, with all eyes on the pitch, there
is pressure to get the turf “spot on”, says
head groundsman Peter Hamilton. “We’ll
be cutting the pitches every day in the
lead-up to the Rugby Festival, and with
the 5510 I can even cut the pitches in two
directions the day before so they look as
good as a professional rugby pitch.”
The Reelmaster 5510-D was chosen to
perfect the pitches and stands out as the
true “favourite”: “The machine is so fast,
but also delivers beautiful results. The
5510 cuts the rugby pitches at 30mm and
always gives a clean, professional finish,”
Peter enthuses. St Joseph’s rugby first
team train and play hard – four times a
week to be exact – and up to 70 cricket
games take place in a season on the
school’s grounds. With such heavy and
frequent use, it’s important to maintain
the sports surfaces with an efficient
machine, which the 5510-D is, according
to Peter: “The 5510 has seen us halve
our cutting time, and setting it up for
cutting is easy with its quick click-in
system. Another thing I love is its low fuel
consumption, which I didn’t expect from
such a large machine.”
74 Landscape & Urban Design
The grounds at St Joseph’s College include
four rugby pitches, three cricket outfields,
and many other sports surfaces that cater
to a wide range of sports on offer – from
netball, hockey and rounders to tennis,
athletics, and cross-country.
Peter says: “We are a big sporting college
and require machines which can keep up
with it all. When we looked at what was
out there, we felt Toro was more than up
to the challenge and its competitive prices
were the icing on the cake.”
The school chose Toro’s Groundsmaster
3280-D in particular to mow the amenity
grass surrounding the college and
collect leaves across the entire site, and
it’s already making a difference to the
grounds team’s daily routine, saving both
labour and maintenance time. “Before we
had a machine for each job, but now the
GM3280 can do both operations and we
have more space in the shed,” says Peter.
“With our previous outfront mowers you
had to remove grass cuttings manually,
but with this one you just reverse, press a
button, it tips out the offcuts, and off we
go again without even having to get off
the machine! Simple things like that, and
only having to swap out individual blades
instead of an entire cutting deck, are
proving to be real time savers.”
Meanwhile, the TYM T433 tractor is the
perfect choice for aerating the pitches
and relieving compaction. It is powerful
enough to pull attachments such as a
deep tine aerator without damaging the
turf.
Peter is confident that the new machines
will “help create surfaces that the girls
and boys will continue to enjoy their sport
on.” He comments: “Given how they’ve
performed already, I’ll definitely be
looking at Toro if we decide to expand our
kit again in the future.”
www.reesinkturfcare.co.uk