With the first week in the books for my internship, I’m enjoying my experience.
On Monday, I was introduced to the triplex mowers that Arsenal uses on their soccer fields. But not all soccer fields that Arsenal have in the facility use the triplex mower and it is mostly used for the older soccer fields that are being played on by the men and women teams currently. I also learned the secret of mowing the different areas and the daily care of the machinery that is being done after the mowing is complete.
On Tuesday, it rained most of the morning. During the rain, the crew and I worked on removing the sod around the netting areas that separate the goalkeepers practice area from the first team practice fields. The manager, Steve, and company are trying artificial turf in the area around the poles that separate the areas. The reasoning is to decrease the amount of mowing around the area and saving money on the fuel. Plus, it is a pain to mow around the area with triplex mowers. After the rain stopped, it was back to mowing all the same soccer fields like Monday. It was a late night getting back, but the job was completed at least.
On Wednesday, I mostly worked with the person in charge of the irrigation for the whole training facility of the soccer fields. Since the watering system is mostly made out of PVC piping, the water system has been breaking down slowly. This is similar to our irrigation system with the strawberries back home at my family farm in Ohio. I also helped him with instillation of new irrigation for one of the renovated soccer field. After completing the tasks, I was given the opportunity to try out the pedestrian mowers. The pedestrian mowers, or known as Primo mowers, are only used on the younger Turfgrass plants after a month of seeding and growing. Reasoning behind this is to decrease the wear and tear of the grass while the grass itself is too small for clipping with the triplex mowers. It was a different experience from the triplex mowers and these mowers are more precise.
On Thursday, I continued to mow with the pedestrian mower and helped put string on the younger grass pitch (soccer field) to start the mowing pattern. After that in the morning, I moved to the different part of the facility with the focus on the gardening and landscape of the facility. Beside watering the plants, I mowed the different small areas with a push mower around the parking lot and entrance area to the facility.
Finally on Friday, I helped out more with the gardener with more mowing on the small areas surrounding the facility and taking care of the plants like watering the olive trees.
During the week was the continuation of renovation of the soccer fields. These are done continuously due to the excessive wear and tear from the players in soccer, and sometimes the NFL teams who come over and use the training center to practice before the London game.
It is starting to be a good internship and I have no shortage of Arsenal apparel that I wear everyday. It is also cool that they provide lunch for everyone who work in the facility from the grounds crew to the first team players for Arsenal. So no more packing lunches for me in the next three months that I am there 🙂
Next week is going to be a long week with rain being constant in the forecast. Keep coming back for more about my wonderful adventure on my internship at Arsenal.
Cheers!