Cheltenham Town’s head groundsman Matt Utteridge revealed it has been a particularly tough winter period looking after the pitch at the EV Charger Points Stadium.
The start to the new year has been a difficult one for Utteridge as the Whaddon Road turf felt the full effects of the colder weather, with temperatures below freezing and heavy rainfall presenting several challenges for the club’s groundsman.
He explained the difficulty in preparing a pitch that is fit for purpose and trying to find the right time to do work on the grass.
“Today I should be hoovering up from the game on Saturday but I just can’t get a mower through it,” the groundsman said.
“If I do I will just damage it more than doing any good so you’ve got to try and find a window where it’s dry enough for you to get on out there with all the equipment, and being on my own it takes around four hours, which is difficult to do at the moment.”
January has seen several challenging tasks for the groundsman, with the club’s final home fixture of the month against Gillingham postponed due to a waterlogged pitch.
We regret to inform supporters that tonight's @SkyBetLeagueTwo fixture with Gillingham at the EV Charger Points Stadium has been postponed due to a waterlogged pitch ❌#ctfc♦️
— Cheltenham Town (@CTFCofficial) January 27, 2026
On reflection, Utteridge admitted the pitch was in a poor state and playing the game would’ve been damaging to the surface.
“It was really bad, even the away dugout there was probably six inches of water and it was just the amount of rain that there was in the days leading up to it.
“The pitch is around 30 years old now and that’s the problem, there aren’t enough drains to what there are at other grounds nowadays and some of them aren’t draining as well as they perhaps should do.
“I came to the ground at around six in the morning and it was completely flooded out there, so I messaged Paul Godfrey (club secretary) to try and get a referee lined up for a pitch inspection.
“Even though we were kicking off at 19:45, the water wasn’t going to shift in time and we had to be fair to the fans and players, who were travelling a long way to make the game as well.”
From wet weather to cold weather making life difficult for Utteridge, with the fixture against Crawley Town at the beginning of the month, where the EFL funded covers and heaters to ensure the match was on in-front of the TV cameras.
Despite the covers helping the Robins to a 3-0 win over their fellow relegation strugglers, the results didn’t come without their difficulty.
“It was a first time for me that happened, but they let me know in advance and then came down and supplied us with the dome.
“The problem was, was that they put the dome up on Tuesday and we didn’t take it down until the Saturday as it was still freezing on the morning of the game so I couldn’t do any work with it.
With 🥶 temperatures, here's how the Whaddon Road pitch is being protected ahead of Sunday's noon kick-off against Crawley Town #ctfc pic.twitter.com/TBpP6KqRD6
— Jon Palmer (@JonPalmerSport) January 3, 2026
“With the pitch being made of sand and it’s been in a hot dome, it crumbles a lot easier and we couldn’t get the moisture back into the turf.
“I’ve never had the dome to be honest, and it was difficult in the end.”
A week later, Whaddon Road hosted Leicester City in similar conditions to the week before, however without the dome, the task to get the game on proved to be more challenging.
“It was probably the biggest game we’ve had for a while and the weather again was cold, so we had to put the sheets on.
“In the end, I had to get a gang of around eight of us at around five o’clock that morning to take the sheets off because it does take a long time but in the end the covers did their job and it was good to see the game go ahead.”
After a turbulent period for the Robin’s groundsman, Utteridge is planning on major pitch renovations over the summer to ensure improved drainage and games aren’t under threat of postponement.
“You have to set a programme very early of what you want to do during the renovation times anyway.
“I think we are going to be doing sand banding in the summer, which we usually do every three years because it’s more expensive, but I think with the weather as it’s been lately, getting wetter and wetter, we will have to do more of it come the end of the season.
“We have to just try to monitor areas as the season goes on and then there’s only little jobs like the drains in certain areas or anything that you might change as the season pans out.”
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