"A Corner Of Some Foreign Field..." A Snapshot of The Stadium Community Clean Up!

I haven't been able to get to too many of the stadium clean ups in recent years, but I did find a few spare hours on the last Sunday to go along with a power-washer. Sadly there was no water available (possibly linked to the new stand being built) so I was in for a more manual bout of activity. I was assigned to the away supporters exit behind the John Smiths Stand that was. It didn't look too bad a job for a couple of hours - just cut everything back, tidy up and put all the waste in the skips.


OK, so it's hardly the most exciting community work I'm likely to be engaged in but if anyone out there ever wonders what a stadium tidy up might involve, this might give a bit of an insight.

This is my patch, and I've already cleared two bins full of leaf-mold from the
slip way before even starting on the undergrowth. 

It was pretty much all slash and burn stuff, but the hardest work was the digging out of  bramble, dock, marrow and assorted other weed roots. The hedge trimmers were proving to be useful!

I ended up with a surprisingly large amount of plastic rubbish emerging . Mainly drinks containers of course, but with significant numbers of glass bottles, the odd item of clothing, golf balls, crisp packets and a shoe!

Then, of course, it started to rain so it was time to get the electrics sorted and under cover of the boot as the rain started to pour down. Note the artistic drops dripping gently off the corner.
Time for a quick coffee...

All clear, so back to work unveiling a strange mound of dubious building  materials. It looked like plaster, but obviously wasn't, and must have been dumped some time back

Time to take a step back to admire the handiwork. It's probably already made a good job at growing back again, but for a week or so looked reasonably tidy

Scalped to within an inch....The strange light coloured mound can be seen but I really didn't have the energy to get into levelling it. 

That was my couple of hours then, apart from emptying two people-carriers worth of waste into the already full skips. Nothing particularly visible or high-profile and only a couple of hours worth but when you think that over 150 individuals had each given up some time and how much they'd accomplished, it's certainly proved to be a valuable contribution over the years