Crews from Bush Sports Turf install fresh sod on the pitch Thursday, April 25, 2024, below a television screen at CityPark. A custom-grown NorthBridge Bermudagrass from a North Carolina farm is being installed. The installation takes two days to complete, meaning the new surface will be ready well in advance of ºüÀêÊÓƵ City SC’s next home game against Chicago on May 11.
On Tuesday morning, Josh McPherson, director of stadium grounds for ºüÀêÊÓƵ City SC, stood along the sidelines at CityPark and watched as a specially designed tractor with some of the biggest tires you’ve ever seen drove along the playing surface and shaved the top inch and a half off the field, shooting the cuttings into another truck driving alongside it, eventually to be composted.
He admitted to a little nostalgia.
“This is the original field,†he said. “But also it’s exciting.â€
Sure enough, two days later, on Thursday morning, McPherson stood like a proud parent as he watched a team from Bush Sports Turf install a new field.
“This is fun,†he said.
When City SC plays its next home game May 11 against Chicago, the team, like McPherson, will have a new plaything. Taking advantage of a gap in both City SC and City2’s playing schedule, the team is replacing its playing surface, a little less than two years after it was installed.
The new field should be, if everyone has done their job, exactly the same as the old one. It’s the same type of grass — Northbridge Bermudagrass — being installed, though it will look a little different at the start, which is part of the tale of why all this is happening.
Work started on laying the new sod around 6 a.m. Thursday and should be done by Friday afternoon. In all, 83,000 square feet of sod will be used to cover the sand base of the field. (McPherson ordered 88,000 square feet, just to be safe.) The sod was harvested from its farm in North Carolina last week, rolled in strips 50 feet long, 42 inches wide and 1½ to 1¾ inches deep. Each roll weighs about a ton, depending on how much moisture it’s holding, and 28 refrigerated trucks were used to transport the sod to ºüÀêÊÓƵ. The company has two devices of its own creation: a sod layer that allows workers to line up where the sod should be, and then a sod pusher, which uses a spiked hydraulic arm to shove the newly laid sod snug against what already has been put down.
While the field looked great this season and no one had any complaints about how it was playing, McPherson’s experience said that might not last.
“We don’t want the pitch to become a problem,†he said. “When they start having issues, it’s very fast. And so based on experience, based on other people having these, based on things we’ve tested for, we knew that’s going to probably happen this summer. ... None of us want to have a problem. We want to be at the top level all the time.â€
So when McPherson saw a suitable gap in the schedule, he got the OK from his bosses and put the switch into motion.
One of the reasons the grass looked so good now is because that wasn’t the Bermudagrass you were seeing. While the base of the surface is Bermudagrass, which thrives in the heat of the summer, the field is overseeded with ryegrass at either end of the season. But the ryegrass will die out as the weather gets warmer, then the field won’t look as good.
“You have to start making the change when you look great,†McPherson said. “That’s the hardest part is that you have to convince people you need to be proactive to make the change, because you know if you wait, that’s when you get in trouble. And that’s the hardest part about doing it is that we love the way the field looks right now. And we know that, but it’s not going to be great. So we need to make that change. That’s the hardest part about it. ‘Yep, it looks good. Now let’s do something to change it so we can make it through the whole season.’
Crews from Bush Sports Turf install fresh sod on the pitch Thursday, April 25, 2024, at CityPark.
“Generally in ºüÀêÊÓƵ in April, everyone’s lawns looks great. And then we know in the next six weeks we’re not going to be sitting outside as much in the afternoon. It turns very quickly here, and so when the sod comes in, it’ll be 100% Bermudagrass. We don’t have to worry about the ryegrass, and then in those areas where we don’t have a Bermudagrass base, we’re going to keep our footing.â€
The changing of the grass will be a regular but not annual event at CityPark. The team got almost two years out of this field and would have gotten a bit more, but the team was at the mercy of the MLS schedule for when it could make the change. McPherson hopes the team can get three years or more out of this new field because now that they have been in the stadium for more than a year, they’ve learned things about the shade patterns and the drainage and what they need to do to keep the field looking and playing its best.
When the MLS and MLS Next Pro schedules came out, McPherson immediately looked for a long gap where he could do field maintenance, and this was it, between a City2 game April 19 and a City SC game May 11.
“I may never see a break like this in my career here,†he said.
One difference you may notice the next time you see a game from CityPark is the color. Bermudagrass is a lighter shade of green than ryegrass, and because it has differently shaped blade than ryegrass, the stripes cut into the field won’t be as pronounced.
So this is one instance where the grass is not always greener.
Photos: Blanket of fresh sod for CityPark stadium
Crews from Bush Sports Turf install fresh sod on the pitch Thursday, April 25, 2024, below a television screen at CityPark. A custom-grown NorthBridge Bermudagrass from a North Carolina farm is being installed. The installation takes two days to complete, meaning the new surface will be ready well in advance of ºüÀêÊÓƵ City SC’s next home game against Chicago on May 11.
Crews from Bush Turf install fresh sod on the pitch at CityPark stadium on Thursday, April 25, 2024. A custom-grown NorthBridge Bermudagrass from a North Carolina farm is being installed by a team from Bush Turf. The installation takes two days to complete, well in advance of ºüÀêÊÓƵ City SC’s next home game against Chicago on May 11.
Crews from Bush Sports Turf install fresh sod on the pitch Thursday, April 25, 2024, at CityPark.
Crews from Bush Turf install fresh sod on the pitch at CityPark stadium on Thursday, April 25, 2024. A custom-grown NorthBridge Bermudagrass from a North Carolina farm is being installed by a team from Bush Turf. The installation takes two days to complete, well in advance of ºüÀêÊÓƵ City SC’s next home game against Chicago on May 11.
Crews from Bush Turf install fresh sod on the pitch below a television screen at CityPark stadium on Thursday, April 25, 2024. A custom-grown NorthBridge Bermudagrass from a North Carolina farm is being installed by a team from Bush Turf. The installation takes two days to complete, well in advance of ºüÀêÊÓƵ City SC’s next home game against Chicago on May 11.
Crews from Bush Turf install fresh sod on the pitch at CityPark stadium on Thursday, April 25, 2024. A custom-grown NorthBridge Bermudagrass from a North Carolina farm is being installed by a team from Bush Turf. The installation takes two days to complete, well in advance of ºüÀêÊÓƵ City SC’s next home game against Chicago on May 11.
Crews from Bush Turf install fresh sod on the pitch at CityPark stadium on Thursday, April 25, 2024. A custom-grown NorthBridge Bermudagrass from a North Carolina farm is being installed by a team from Bush Turf. The installation takes two days to complete, well in advance of ºüÀêÊÓƵ City SC’s next home game against Chicago on May 11.
