'Dyna' and 'Mo' prove pitch-perfect for Aylesbury Vale Dynamos

With a large football pitch to maintain, Aylesbury Vale Dynamos, with 32 teams under its belt, has turned its attention to autonomous mowing, to help the growing club maintain its vast football pitch. Crediting Husqvarna Automower® Club Solution, the club has noted great benefits of Automower®, in just three months.

With a stadium pitch to maintain, the Aylesbury Vale Dynamos team and its chairman, Mike Borrett, discussed moving to Husqvarna Automower® Club Solution, following a recommendation from Farol Ltd, which is a specialist dealer with a dedicated Automower® sales and installation team. Their recommendation would allow two Automower® 550 to work simultaneously alongside each other, now using just one boundary wire.

Aylesbury Vale Dynamos relies heavily on volunteers to help run and sustain the club, which has always brought about its own set of challenges, including limited time, resource, and finance. Thanks to their two Automower® 550 and the use of Automower® Club Solution, installed in April 2021, the football club has been able to combat many of their previous challenges.

Trusted Husqvarna dealer Farol recommend Automower®

Mike Borrett, chairman of Aylesbury Vale Dynamos, discussed the club’s switch to Automower®: “Making the move to Automower® has been a brilliant decision for the club, that has paid off multiple times over. Following discussions with Husqvarna and our Automower® dealer, Farol Ltd, it quickly became evident that Automower® Club Solution could solve many of the challenges we were facing.

“Like many football clubs, we rely heavily on the assistance of volunteers to maintain our grounds and stadium. We’re incredibly grateful to all our volunteers, but it does provide its own set of challenges. Whether it’s raining or beaming with sunshine, the grass requires twice-weekly cutting, and if no one is able to do it, we end up with grass that’s too long and debris on the pitch, both of which cause problems when the teams go out to play.

“Thanks to Automower® we’re able to redeploy our volunteers to more skilful tasks, saving ourselves hours of time each week, and with Automower® being battery powered, we’ve also been able to eliminate the need for petrol, which has been great for reducing our CO2 emissions, and the club’s finances.”

Impressed with Automower® Club Solution's innovation

Ever since the first Automower® was introduced in 1995, Husqvarna has been known as the world leader in robotic mowing. With over 2 million sold worldwide, Automower® is renowned for its low energy consumption, zero emissions, low noise and high productivity, whilst featuring the ability to withstand a busy match schedule and hours of intense training.

As Automower® cuts the grass every day, the impact on the turf and ground is minimal. The very small, quick-composting clippings provide a constant source of fertilisation and moisture, creating greener and denser turf. Research also shows that the constant cutting allows grass roots to grow 25% deeper, resulting in a healthier and stronger pitch.

Mike discussed the club’s use of Club Solution: “Automower® Club Solution has continuously impressed us with its innovation. The system has allowed our two 550 mowers to be used simultaneously on one pitch, without wires intersecting the playing surface.”

Automower® improved the turf quality in just three months 

With Automower® Club Solution, two or three mowers can mow the pitch simultaneously, with only a single boundary wire outside the playing surface, eliminating the risk of a damaged boundary wire during turf treatment such as aeration or scarification.

Mike continued: “In just three months we can already see the difference Automower® has made to our turf quality, with turf professionals even commenting that they can’t believe how well and healthy the grass looks. 

Using the Automower® Connect app

“Thanks to the Automower® Connect app we’re able to control the mowers no matter where we are, which is a great benefit when the weather isn’t pleasant or when we’re away from the stadium. From the app we’re able to programme them to park at the side of the stadium when a match is on and redeploy once it’s finished.

“The Dynamo’s team are big fans of the mowers, naming them ‘Dyna’ and ‘Mo’, and the fans are even more so. Each match spectators ask us about them, and we can’t blame them, they really are fascinating, and we can’t imagine switching back to manual stadium mowing.”