A tale of two pitches as dry weather hits clubs
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At one of the oldest football grounds in the country, staff are facing a very modern challenge ahead of the new season.
Non-league Gainsborough Trinity have played at the Northolme since 1884, but the stadium lacks the modern irrigation enjoyed by teams higher up the football pyramid.
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It means their pitch has suffered from the heat and dry weather this summer.
Head groundsman John Wood says when he started at the Lincolnshire club three decades ago, "it was just a hose out of the changing room".
"Now, we have six in-pitch sprinklers and 17 around the edge which have been on constantly.
"We put around 20,000 litres of water on more or less every day."
John Wood with apprentice Harry Bishop at the ground in 2025 [BBC]Pitch renovations began at the Northolme – which has a claim to being the oldest ground in use continuously by a single team – in May.
But Wood says there has been very little rainfall since then and the Met Office recorded only 0.4mm (0.02in) in Lincolnshire in July.
The county is not officially in drought, but has experienced "prolonged dry weather", according to the government.
Anglian Water has imposed a hosepipe ban, but sports clubs can water pitches if they are actively being played on and would otherwise be dangerously hard.
With the water in short supply, Wood adds: "If this is going to be the norm, we are going to have to think of smarter ways to store water."
The upgrades to Sir Halley Stewart Playing Fields, Spalding, cost £1m [Owen Hardwick, BBC]Sixty miles (97km) to the south, fellow non-league club Spalding United have managed to sidestep the problem.
In September last year, they completed a £1m upgrade to their stadium, the Sir Halley Stewart Playing Field, which included a "state-of-the-art" artificial pitch.
Promotion to the National League North followed and, for chief executive Leigh Porter, the prolonged dry weather has reinforced just why the investment was worthwhile.
"Having an artificial pitch has made this summer a lot more painless than what we would have had with a grass pitch," he says.
"We have really got a lovely facility, I wish I could wave a magic wand and give every club in the area the same pitch.
"I do not think there is a thing to call a game off because your pitch is too hard, but I think that is the danger."
Porter says the pitch can be used 24 hours a day, 365 days a year.
"It is right for our club and right for our community," he adds.
The lack of rain in Skegness has made preparing the bowling greens particularly tough [Steve O'Dare]It is not just football clubs struggling with the dry weather.
On the coast in Skegness, the North Parade Bowling Greens CIC are due to host the English Bowls Federation finals at the end of August.
Steve O'Dare, the club's chairman, says preparations have been affected by the lack of rain.
"We have had to use our main irrigation system far more than we would like to because it is very expensive.
"We have no real idea of how much it is going to cost us but we have just got to bite the bullet and get some water on the greens."
He adds: "It is in the laps of whichever gods run this thing as to whether we get any water or not.
"If the bowling greens get dry, the surface is rougher and the bowls do not roll as they should do.
"It does not matter what forecast you look at, the rain is not coming. You have just got to keep fighting it."
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