PITCH & LINE MARKERS
“ It definitely saves us time across the whole site, because people normally will pick up little jobs around the pitches where the Turf Tank is marking. So we can keep an eye on the Turf Tank whilst doing jobs that might be potentially put off till last in previous years.”
“ Probably a half a day’ s work on the Turf Tank, which would have been two days’ work with marking for two people. If you look at it like that, then it’ s saving three and a half days.
Manual Marking
2 people
2 days
Turf Tank
1 person 5 minutes setup
½ day robot marking
Effortless Pitch Layout Customization Another important aspect for a professional club is providing the ideal training environment for their players. That’ s where training lines play an important role, and with Turf Tank, marking these lines has become effortless.“ We can easily set up training lines using the tablet. Once the layout is saved, it’ s as simple as pressing start,” explains Joe.
Our pitches have multiple tactical lines on, and it was relatively easy to just upload that to the tablet. You have to be patient and maybe go out and do a couple of dry runs once you’ ve programmed it to the robot, but once they’ re in, it’ s saved us countless hours, and it wasn’ t too hard at all.
“ Once you get used to using the tablet, I think you can kind of do whatever you want with it.”- Joe Bxerry, Head Groundsman at Bristol City FC
The versatility of the Turf Tank robot opened up a range of possibilities for Joe’ s team. Beyond the club’ s football pitches, the robot is now used to mark different field layouts for Queen Elizabeth’ s Hospital School.
“ It has been helpful on the school side of things, because occasionally football clubs might hire the school fields out for tournaments. Rather than having to initially mark six junior pitches for a tournament, just for one weekend, we’ ve been able to just program them on the tablet, and it saves so much time. Also, when it comes from changing the pitches over from football to athletics, again, we can really leave that athletic marking until the last possible day before the school come back. It saves us marking and over marking an athletics track just because you want to get it done in advance of the school coming back from half term.”
“ It’ s definitely taken the strain off me at quite a busy time”- Joe Berry, Head Groundsman at Bristol City FC
Conclusion The introduction of the Turf Tank robot revolutionised grounds maintenance for Bristol City FC. The autonomous robot significantly enhanced both efficiency and precision in their line marking processes, ensuring the club continues to deliver the highest quality, while saving valuable time for the grounds team.
GroundskeepingJournal. co. uk | May / June 2025 59