Seeding underway at West Ham’s new Olympic Park stadium

West Ham United have taken one step closer to moving into their new home at Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park this week as the pitch seeding process gets underway.

The first seeds at the Hammers’ new London Stadium were sown on Wednesday morning (June 9), with the process taking around four hours.

Now the club are hoping to see sprouts of grass within the next few days. The first full cut will be carried out from two to five days after the grass starts to show.

The London Stadium’s head groundsman, Greg Bolton, who worked alongside West Ham head groundsman Dougie Robertson, assured supporters that the seeding process would be handled correctly.

In a statement on the club’s website, Greg 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.”

While the seeds are yet to shoot, the pitch at the London Stadium already has a green colouring due to the turf’s artificial components.

Speaking further, Greg commented: “It’s very deceiving at the moment. 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.”

He added: “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.”

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