Scotsman Scores at West Ham Academy
The home to some of the UK’s best up-and-coming footballers, West Ham United’s “Academy of Football” has taken delivery of a Scotsman AF100 flake ice machine at its Little Heath Training Ground. The Flake Ice Machine will be predominantly used for the manufacturing of ice as a physiotherapy treatment.
The West Ham Academy has produced many stars of football past and present, including Bobby Moore, Trevor Brooking, Rio Ferdinand, Frank Lampard and Joe Cole. The academy scouts for and enrols young players from as early as eight years old and helps them to develop their natural football talents. From the age of 14 players who display premiership qualities are singled out and are trained with the aim of playing for one of the academies two main teams, the under-17’s or the under-19’s.
Football training is physically very demanding, and it is important for the academy to ensure that its proteges are kept at the peak of physical fitness.
Packing ice around strains, sprains, bruises and ligament injuries is a standard technique in sports medicine known as ‘Cryotherapy’.
Using an ice pack for up to 10 minutes-at-a-time an injured athlete can benefit from the chilling effect immediately after an injury, removing the ice for about 30 minutes, and subsequently reapplying it for another 10 minutes. This cycle of ice application assists athletes in responding quickly and effectively to injury.
Iced water baths are also an effective method of rejuvenation aiding faster recovery and reducing muscle pain and soreness after intense training sessions or competitions.
Flake ice is ice in its most natural shape and is preferred by many physiotherapists and sports clinicians. The Scotsman system is also favoured as it extrudes the ice at a temperature just below zero degrees creating a flaked ice that is highly malleable, easy to apply and, which can be shaped to match the injured area.
Chris Framingham, National Sales Manager-Hubbard Ice Systems says “The Scotsman AF100 is a compact, self contained ice production unit and storage bin that has a small footprint and yet can produce up to 85Kg of flaked ice in a 24 hour period. With young players who have a lot of energy and enthusiasm it is vitally important to ensure that any injuries are attended to quickly and promptly to rule out any long-term damage to them physically or from a career perspective. So an ice machine which is reliable and yet is easy and simple to operate is critical to the delivery of prompt treatment”.
The Scotsman AF100 self-contained ice flaker sits towards the top of the Scotsman ice flaker range and has a bin capacity of 32Kg and uses only 75 Litres of water per 24 hour period. The air-cooled ice-maker is housed in a stainless steel cabinet measuring 1126mm in height.
The Scotsman AF100 is energy efficient, when manufacturing ice, consuming just 9KwH per 24 hour period. The self-contained storage bin is insulated to ensure that the flake ice is retained in pristine condition once it has been manufactured and is ready for use at moments notice.
