BATTERY POWER: OLYMPIA (Home of Helsinborg) named best pitch by league players
Head Groundsman: Christian Olofsson, 35 years old (Middle)
How long have you been a groundsman?
I've been working here at Helsingborg for five years as a groundsman, before that I was working as a green-keeper for thirteen years so in total I've been in the turf industry for eighteen years of service.
How many pitches do you have to look after at Helsingborg and how big is your grounds team?
We’ve got seven pitches in total and we have five groundsmen here in the team all of which are hired by the City of Helsingborg. We’ve got five natural grass pitches and two artificial ones.
How long have you been using Allett machines?
We’ve been using Allett since 2018. We’ve got two C34 Evolution battery cylinder machines and one Uplift Evolution for the main pitch.
Equipment in the shed
- Two C34 Evolution battery cylinder machines
- One Uplift Evolution86E
- Two John Deere 4-series tractors
- Verti-drain and Verti-quake aertors
- One John Deere 1585 mower for clean up
- John Deere 7200 cylinder mower.
- One Toro Procore 648.
- Overseeder from Vredo
- Topdresser Dakota 412.
Why did you choose to go battery power?
We were at Saltex in 2018 when Allett revealed the Evolution machines and we instantly fell for them. Helsingborg the City is working to become fossil-free by 2024 so it was an quite an easy choice to go battery power.
What features/benefits do you like most about the battery products?
I love how quiet they are! The lack of noise and exhaust fumes is great for us as groundsmen. If someone comes up to me and needs to talk to me there's no need to stop the mower and there is no noise or fumes- it's so nice! On the Uplift I love the height of cut adjustment- It's brilliant, just brilliant. It's so easy to adjust the height and off we go.
Going from triplex mower to pedestrians is the best thing ever. The quality in everything we do just lifts several levels. You come must closer to the pitch feeling every little divot and can fixed it with your cylinder right away.
You were recently voted best pitch in the league by the players- tell me about this?
Being voted best by the players is the best feedback we can get. The league has 16 teams and ten of them are playing on artificial grass. All the players that come here just love playing on real grass- they love the look and smell of it as well as the playing conditions themselves. They can play to their best ability knowing the ball bounce and roll is going to be just perfect. We can see it in their eyes and when they walk up to us and say “One hell of a job you’ve done here, boys”. It just feels so good knowing that they know that there is no excuses not to play good football here.
The Swedish players have voted Olympia as this year's best football pitch in Allsvenskan 2020. Olympia have won it every year for the past three seasons.
Find Christian's instagram page here