can anyone help? my lawn is flat and terrible for holding water.the trouble is , I think, that there is only a couple of inches of soil and then it is solid yellow clay, it is not to bad in summer but in winter it is realy water-logged. Any advice from someone please.

I have the same problem and found this information: How to install a lawn drainage system (http://www.gardenadvice.co.uk/howto/lawns/drainage/index.html)

Unfortunately as I was reading it my eyes started to glaze over and I lost the will to live. Needless to say I still have a soggy lawn at times.

I don't think that you can solve this without at least partially digging your lawn up, assuming that you've done the first aid fix of poking holes in the lawn with a hollow tined fork or a garden fork and filled the drainage holes with sand to keep them clear and working and it's still a problem.

Every other solution that I've read either involves lifting the lawn and digging huge quantities of gravel into the subsoil to improve drainage before returfing or digging deeper channels into the clay which are filled with gravel or sand and leading to a soakaway area or drain then laying the turf back on the top.