Olympic Stadium seeded

Seeding of the former Olympic Stadium pitch is now underway. The work began on Wednesday morning and the process took around four hours to complete. The first sprouts of grass are hoped to be seen within just five days of the seeding process being completed, and the pitch should be ready for its inaugural full cut between two to five days later.

Former Fulham and Reading Head Groundsman, Greg Bolton, who has taken over the new role at the former Olympic Stadium has been working in consultation with West Ham’s Head Groundsman Dougie Robertson who remains in charge of the training ground pitches.

Bolton said: “It certainly is a big moment [in the development of the Stadium]. It’s very important that this is taken with great care. I think the idea is not to rush this process. We have to get it right.

“The contractors we have on site are one of the best around. They do all the top grounds in the country, and we’re glad to have them on board here. It most certainly will be one of the best surfaces around.”

“It’s very deceiving at the moment,” he continued. “We’ve got the Desso fibres all exposed, and a lot of people think we’ve got full grass coverage already, but all that is just the reinforcing system in the surface.

“It’s exactly the same as the Club had at the Boleyn Ground, and it just helps aid soil stability. We shouldn’t have any big divots coming out of the surface; it should just be scarring. It helps with repairs and holding the surface together.”

“We are expecting to see slight imprints in the surface [after the athletics] which we don’t see as being too much of an issue,” he explained. “It will just be a case of going round with a fork and just lifting areas which have any slight impressions in them.”

“The athletics require a clean surface without any markings, so the first [football] markings will be going on the week after the athletics ahead of the West Ham fixtures.”