Leicester City have 89 great crested newts sharing their training ground at Seagrave. The club knows this because the newts are counted, regularly, at night.

The club is also constructing a league table rating different types of grass seed and working with the European Space Agency on a project to turn the 600 tonnes of grass cuttings they produce from the 21 playing surfaces – which are tested every day before training for their “characteristics” – into fuel.

Advertisement

As head of sports turf and grounds, there has always been much more to John Ledwidge’s duties than preparing pitches and cutting grass, but since the creation of Leicester’s new £100 million training complex in the north of the county, his role has gone beyond that of a groundsman.

He has become a scientist, horticulturist, herpetologist, ecologist, environmentalist, a project manager and a boss to 51 staff who tend the 185-acre grounds and the King Power Stadium pitch.

“I am now an encyclopedia of stuff I never imagined I would learn about in my job,” Ledwidge tells The Athletic. “It has been an eye-opener, beyond my job of building pitches and the golf course. I have a lot more strings to my bow.”

The former site of Park Hill Golf Club is vast, but attention is given to every minuscule detail, including the local wildlife.

As part of the planning conditions for the development, Ledwidge had to become a license holder to take on the responsibility of protecting and preserving the newts, who are a protected species, and other wildlife.

“We had to be mindful of their reproduction cycles how they create their own habitats and close off parts of the training ground,” says Ledwidge, who can add trained pilot to his skillset. “That is why we have big green fences around the ground in certain areas, to contain and protect them from any development. When they have migrated into other areas then you can take that area off and develop.

“We have a land ecology and management plan we have to stick to, 144 pages of stipulations we have to adhere to, to make sure they have a suitable habitat to develop. It is a complex process and a lot of the counting and monitoring is done through the night. We physically do count them. It is arduous but necessary.”

That meant ignoring his natural groundsman instincts and leaving parts of the land wild, while also building hive vernaculars out of bricks, stones and soil, as well as nurturing habitats around the ponds on the nine-hole golf course.

Advertisement

“A lot of it is not overly managing these areas, which drives me mad because I am a groundsman and everything has to be manicured, tidy and neat,” he adds.

Everything else absolutely is. There is a constant buzz of mowers providing the background soundtrack to the site as you travel down the long drive into the complex — designed by KSS Group, the same architects behind Liverpool, Tottenham and Brighton’s training facilities — towards a large water feature in front of the indoor training area, and all internal travel is done in electric golf carts.

As you head towards the main building, the road forks either left or right. To the left is the main car park for the under-23s and academy, and all visitors. To the right is the more exclusive first-team area. The facilities for the development squad, the gym, medical and sports science departments are top of the range but the first-team’s are on another level, with hydrotherapy facilities and a 30-bedroom hotel so they can rest between sessions.

The rooms are designated to individual players — captain Kasper Schmeichel has the largest – and there is a television that displays their itinerary for the day. The Leicester manager Brendan Rodgers, who runs around the site before training each day, is a stickler for timekeeping and there can be no excuse.

In the club canteen, there is also a large television with the itineraries for all the age groups and a countdown clock to the next training session. Again, the canteen, which uses produce from the vegetable and herb garden towards the back of the building, is slightly split to motivate the aspiring youngsters.

On the left are the areas for the under-23s and lower age groups, all nicely furnished and comfortable, with an outdoor sitting area, but to the right is the first-team area, with its larger, higher-grade furnishings. Every young player can look over and dream of the day when they get asked to take the right turn at the fork in the road. That will mean they are on their way.

Advertisement

On the menu in the canteen is fresh fruit, yogurt and cereals for breakfast, as well as an omelette station and hot food options, like poached eggs. For lunch, they usually have three protein options, three carbs and veg, ranging from salmon to beef brisket, and there is usually a vegetarian option too. Carbohydrate options can be potatoes, rice and quinoa, while the vegetables on offer are different every day. On Tuesday this week, it was savoy cabbage or mixed roasted veg.

There is also a cold food section with salads, chicken satay skewers and other alternatives, while the desserts vary but there is always fresh fruit and yogurt on offer.

Another perk is the nine-hole golf course, which was also part of KSS’s design but contractors McLaren Construction set up the land and Ledwidge and his staff landscaped the course, including the greens. It is immaculately maintained but rarely played, not because there is a 1km distance between the 4th green and 5th tee as the course straddles the complex, but because Rodgers likes to keep it as a reward for his players and staff. Ledwidge and his staff certainly deserve to get a round in, not just for what they do for the local wildlife around the course.

The days are long and they can do between 25,000 to 35,000 steps per day. Each day they test the pitches before training, using an Impact Hammer to record the firmness, and they also test the moisture, speed and roll on the surface too, feeding their data back to the sports scientists and coaching staff to assess the risk of injury and prepare for a training session. The stadium pitch is tested every Monday, Wednesday, Friday and on a match day. Ledwidge works closely with Rodgers, who takes great interest in their work.

“We can measure the speed the ball can travel across the pitch in a variety of ways and we know when we can change those operations by watching training, watching the ball and testing the speed of the ball,” he says.

“We try to find the optimum for them to play the game they want to play — a quick passing game with the ball on the floor. If it isn’t how he (Rodgers) wants it we can have that conversation. We are there to facilitate the players.

“We will look at our maintenance. When the ball starts to drag, are we still cutting at the same height (standard 22mm across all pitches, including King Power Stadium) and putting the same amount of water on? We will know if the pitches need thinning out because they are too thick. Turf creates drag on the ball. When we look at ball speed across the surface we will measure that and ensure that it isn’t any different on a match day to pitch No 1 at Seagrave.”

Advertisement

The King Power Stadium pitch has been completely rebuilt during the close season, for the first time since the ground was opened in 2002, with new drainage, undersoil heating and a stitched surface, meaning that all the pitches Leicester now have are of a similar age.

Previously, at Belvoir Drive, all the pitches were built at different times and therefore had different characteristics. The fast players who preferred harder pitches, like Jamie Vardy, would split and train on a different pitch to those who needed a softer surface to prevent injury. Now there is consistency — Ledwidge’s key word — across all the surfaces.

“We went down to the foundations and rebuilt the King Power pitch from the bottom up, with more long-term and sustainable solutions,” says Ledwidge, who can often be seen around the stadium or at Seagrave with his loyal cockapoo Harley close by.

“Some of the materials will now last 20 years. The upper surface will be changed in 10 years’ time. It is a complete rebuild and it is more sustainable with a renewed water source, and all the nutrients captured and reapplied onto the pitch.

“It is a big investment (believed to have cost £2 million) and we’ve tried to think long term. That pitch now lines up with the pitches at Seagrave. The characteristics of that pitch will change over the next year and bring it even more in line with the pitches at Seagrave.”

There is certainly a long-term view. As well as the football operations, Ledwidge has fulfilled an ambition to open a Sports Turf Academy, where the next generation of sports groundsmen and women, some of whom will gain experience at the World Cup in Qatar and at Wimbledon, are being trained.

The academy has four key roles. First up is training and education for groundsmen of all levels from all over the country. The club also supplies, free of charge, support to sports clubs across the community, offering advice and practical support in developing and maintaining their surfaces. So far, more than 70 clubs have received assistance. They have also helped a fellow Premier League club set up their sports turf strategy.

Advertisement

They also have a trials and research laboratory under the watch of Dr Jonathan Knowles, the Sports Turf Academy Manager, where they are compiling studies of the various grass seeds to draw up a league table. They do this by assessing each different seed for how they wear, their tolerance and how they react to different environments so the club can choose the best for them. The table will then be made available for the groundskeeping industry to use for guidance.

Finally, they help the sports science department by studying the interaction between a player and the surface.

“We need to understand what reaction is going on in their boot and up their leg, down their spine and their biomechanics,” he adds. “They are playing and training on what we are producing. It is important we are accountable and understand what is going on so we can deliver that data to the sports science department so if there are injuries we can validate that we have maintained the pitches in a certain sort of way.

“It may be the pitch has caused some of that, it might not be but at least we have the data to back that up.  There is a lot of research into that.”

Next up is to make the site even more ecologically friendly and sustainable, with work ongoing into reusable power sources, water recycling, the use of electric mowers and the confidential study with the European Space Agency.

“We are looking at a system that recycles the grass clippings into a fuel source,” he explains. “Anaerobic digestion has been around for centuries, where you put your grass in a pile and it creates a lot of methane gas. Gas needs a lot of space, but we have found a solution that turns that gas into a liquid, which you can turn into a refine fuel and use on our engines. That is the next step. That would be a game-changer for the industry.”

Seagrave has cost the club £100 million to develop, but it could be a game-changer too for Leicester City.

The numbers behind the Seagrave development

• 7 – buildings in total, including the King Power Centre and Sports Turf Academy
• 21,593 – the number of new trees and conifers planted across the site, to aid an abundance of natural wildlife
• 1.5m – litres of water stored on site for irrigation of all pitches, which will be recycled through irrigation lines stretching 9km in total
• 30 – bedrooms provided for the overnight stays of players and football staff
• 7,140 – tonnes of grass seed used to give life to the array of pitches
• 185,000 – bricks used in the formation of the seven buildings and surrounding structures
• 200 – televisions installed throughout the centre’s various buildings, including in conference rooms, offices, bedrooms and recreational areas
• 86,000m/sq – seeds planted in ‘off pitch’ areas to provide a safe habitat for indigenous wildlife
• 21 – playing surfaces in total, including 14 full-size pitches
• 4 – new attenuation ponds installed for rainwater control and to support flora and fauna
• 11,261m/sq – floor space in The Vichai Srivaddhanaprabha Building
• 18,548 – new climbers and shrubs planted throughout the training ground’s land
• 1,121m/sq – Terrazzo flooring, which consists of chips of marble, quartz, granite and glass
• 600m/sq– raised planters for the growth of herbs and vegetables
• 75,000 – tonnes of rootzone (highly versatile soil) applied to all grass pitches
• 2 – show pitches for use in selected matches by the Development Squad, Academy and LCFC Women
• 499 – seats available for the general public and visiting media on the main, floodlit show pitch
• 1,780 tonnes – of steel for structural frames on each of the buildings across the site
• 525m/sq – timber decking on balconies to the south of The Vichai Srivaddhanaprabha Building
• 313,000 metres cubed – earth moved across the build process, with 95 per cent being retained and reutilised throughout the campus to limit environmental impact
• 450 – below-ground drainage runs, alongside two on-site waste treatment plants
• 700m/sq – porcelain tiling utilised across three observational balconies, including the first team players’ recreational garden
• 9 – holes on a private golf course, for use by players and staff
• 185 acres – the size of the entire complex

(Photos: Plumb Images)