Pitch at Canterbury Hockey Club Gets a Makeover

PoloFarm, home to some of Britain’s top hockey players, now has a water-based synthetic turf pitch that plays much quicker thanks to it being deep-cleaned by synthetic sports surface maintenance company Replay.

The pitch is considered one of the top water-based pitches in the country and is played on by the 10 men’s and five ladies teams of Canterbury Hockey Club, including its Premier League men’s team. The pitch had become compacted and dirty so Tim Smith, head groundsman at PoloFarm, contacted Replay about its Aquatrax service.
 
"I saw Aquatrax in action on the Replay website and it looked the perfect machine for the job." he said: "In fact, from start to finish, Replay has been efficient at every stage and I didn’t have to keep my eye on them doing the work, they just got on with it.

"We are delighted with how well Aquatrax has cleaned the pitch and in addition to making it much quicker to play on, I’ve been told that some of the players now don’t have to wash their kit after every match!"

Aquatrax is a unique process, combining washing and vacuum extraction to restore a pitch’s looks and playing characteristics. It was first developed to remove accumulated contamination from athletics tracks but has since been adapted to clean dirt and algae away from water-based hockey surfaces. The machine applies pressure water jets to dislodge the dirt and a vacuum extraction system then removes the dirty water to a tank on the machine so that contaminants are not returned to the surface. The process doesn’t use any chemicals only cold water.
 
The Aquatrax process is a British process carried out using a British-built machine and is so effective that it was used to clean the track at the London 2012 Olympic stadium both after the opening and closing ceremonies and throughout the athletics events. Throughout 2012, Aquatrax was used to rejuvenate over 50 tracks and water-based pitches across the country, contributing to a record year for Replay Maintenance.