Deepdale pitch preparation under way ahead of Preston North End's 2024/25 campaign

Work is well under way at Deepdale to prepare Preston North End’s pitch for next season.

The Lilywhites will return for pre-season in June, with friendlies set to commence in July and the start of the 2024/25 campaign in early August. North End’s players are on their summer break, but preparations at the stadium have begun. Preston’s pitch suffered at times last season, in the second half of it especially. But, things are well on track, down at Deepdale - according to the club’s head groundman, Pete Ashworth.

"We've had two decent weeks of weather,” said Ashworth. “We strip the top 12mls of vegetation off, to a clean surface and get rid of the organic build-up we get over the season - that stops the drainage rates. Then we put 200 tonne of fresh, fibre sand on and mix that into the existing surface. They have levelled it, rolled it and it's ready for seeding. I'd like to think I'll come in on Monday and see the seeds starting to pop. So, by the back end of next week it should be quite a green coverage and we'll be cutting it next Monday, there or thereabouts.”

On the pitch last season, Ashworth added: “The pitch drains really well, but you get this little, organic build-up on the surface and that’s where some of the issues lied. Every game seemed to have heavy downpours, so we were having to open up the surface - to guarantee water would get through and get away.

“It does soon dry up and that’s where you’d see big chunks coming out on the wings and starting to crumble. Ultimately, in the winter we get less rooting because we’re losing grass cover - that holds the sand together. So, we didn’t have that and the sand is just like if you ran around on a beach. It does look bad and it was a bit stressful; we got it back quite well for the last few games.”