Lincolnshire firm County Turf undertake UEFA’s demands for Euro 2012

As we head towards the end stages of Euro 2012 and football fever sweeps Europe, emotions are intensifying amongst the fans as they prepare to watch Germany meet Greece in the first match of the quarter finals in Gdansk on Friday 22nd June.

However, the atmosphere was distinctly less jubilant in Gdansk this spring due to some negative publicity about the poor state of the Polish pitch. Although there was praise for the stadium itself, the condition of the turf prompted UEFA to recommend that Gdansk stadium installed a new pitch before the competition started on June 8. The world’s leading sports turf consultancy, STRI, was asked to provide specialist advice to source a new pitch that offered a specific sports surface, improving the playability to meet the expectations of UEFA.

With no time to waste, arrangements were made for representatives from Gdansk stadium to visit British turf farm, County Turf based in Lincolnshire, who have supplied the turf for many prestigious UK and International stadiums. County’s Farm Manager Chris Medley then made the trip to Poland to plan the work to supply their very first pitch into Poland. Within two weeks, the British firm completed an immense operation which involved; organising a turf harvesting team, who worked through the night for a 3 day period and co-ordination of 26 refrigerated lorries which were required to transport the 7400m of turf to Gdansk stadium. Chris Medley from County Turf said: ‘We have a lot of football fans in the team here at County and everyone worked extremely hard to meet the stringent delivery times set by the stadium, once the turf was delivered it had to be laid as soon as possible to allow for a planned league match.’ The turf used was County Turf’s Sports Greenscape, which is grown from a selection of the best cultivars for wear and recovery, so it’s ideal for areas that receive intensive wear such as football pitches.

It is a credit to everyone that was involved in the operation, that everything went according to plan and the President of the European Investment Office Gdansk Adam Kalata stated the ‘new surface was excellent quality’.

YouTube Links to video of turf being laid: http://youtu.be/x2KwYbjJm2I or if you are on a mobile phone, http://youtu.be/Y1NZWwtbEmE.