Football Pitch Mowing 
Mow at a height which allows for good root growth and also good roll of the football. For many pitches this will typically be between 25mm and 50mm, with a 40mm height of cut providing a good balance between root growth and ball roll for many levels of league game. Having the grass height as long as practical going into the winter period when growth effectively stops will also allow additional games to be played, the extra height acting as a slight additional insurance policy, so aim for 50mm at this time of the year. Top class pitches will typically use a height of cut from 22mm to 24mm, or ideally 24mm to 27mm, although even this will place significant stress on the grass plant because these pitches will primarily be sand based causing other stress issues on the growing plant.
For most lower tier, local authority and school football pitches the use of a ride-on 3-gang unit or tractor operated 3 or 5 gang cylinder mowers or rotary deck might be typical; in contrast to mowing pitches by hand, which would only really be applicable to higher leagues or where particular attention to detail is occasionally needed, for example, for cup or tournament matches. Another reason why a pitch might be cut with a hand mower rather than a ride-on or tractor operated one is that soil conditions are just unsuitable for heavier machinery, or there isn’t the machinery available.
The time to cut a pitch can vary significantly depending on type of mower, width of cut, speed of operation, whether clippings are boxed off or let fly (most likely the latter case for the vast majority of pitches) and the overall quality of finish which is desired.
As a general guide a 3-gang unit might take 30 minutes, a 5-gang unit 20 minutes, a 1.8m wide rotary deck (typically with 3 cutting blades) about 30 minutes, although a higher quality finish will typically be produced where speed is not the primary factor for cutting the pitch. This doesn’t allow for the necessary pre-start checks nor clean off afterwards, which should be considered an essential part of good working practice, so another 15-30 minutes could readily be added to a more complete time needed to carry out mowing.
The frequency of cut and total number of cuts per year will also vary depending on length of the growing season and desired standard of pitch, but many would fall within a range of 30 to 60 cuts per annum to ensure a minimum acceptable playing height is maintained and excessive growth is not removed for most of the cuts. In practice, mowing may take place more frequently than needed in some cases due to a desire to ensure the pitch is presented in a well striped or banded look between games as well as towards the lower end of the relevant height of cut rather than towards the higher acceptable end of height of cut.
During the winter period when growth is very slow to dormant it is often not necessary to mow the entire pitch on many lower tier club pitches. However, to keep the line markings well defined and neat then the use of a pedestrian rotary mower along all the lines can be beneficial. The shorter grass makes it easier to cover more of the grass blades with the line marking material and it only takes about 15-minutes to carry out this task whilst on the pitch, although clearly the operator has to get to and from the mower store as well, so if 30-minutes was allocated for this task then this might be a more useful guide for planning purposes.
Where pitches are to be mown to a higher standard using pedestrian mowers such as the Dennis G860 cylinder mower or the twin-blade rotary Pro 34R, both with a cutting width of 86cm then the time to mow a pitch would be about 3 to 3½ hours. The total number of cuts and if no other machinery such as ride-on mowers were used, would typically be in the range of 70 to 100, totalling from 210 to 350 hours.
Various permutations may also be considered for pitch mowing, for example, ride-on machinery for most of the main growing period and especially when soil conditions are on the drier side, which will reduce the potential for compaction and soil smearing. Pedestrian mowers should be considered when ground conditions are moist and mowing would otherwise cause unacceptable compaction and soil smearing with heavier machinery. In addition, the use of a rotary pedestrian mower after some games to clean up the surface will also be carried out. However, in practice this would only occur with higher league clubs, as well as clubs with higher pitch standards and more resources.
The use of a chain harrow with its smooth side downwards can also be used to stripe pitches outside of mowing.