Memorial garden through ninety degrees.
With this in mind, Paul consulted with Old Trafford’s Head Groundsman, Matt Merchant, to see what needed to be done to ensure the tracks would be okay for the allocated matches. It was agreed that three central strips would be decommissioned from play and renovated in late May 2010, the strips to be fraise mown, levelled, deep spiked, topdressed with Boughton County Loam and re-sown with a BSH seed mix, the aim being to get decent root growth and a deeper loam profile during this summer’s growing season. Paul has also fed the square with a granular 12:0:6 NPK fertiliser to promote growth. The square gets cut at 9mm during the growing season and reduced to a match
View from the pavilion
playing height of 3mm via a ten - fourteen day preparation programme. This is where the Dennis FT610 cassette comes in useful, with the tungsten verticut reel fitted to clean out debris. There is a hydrant at the corner of the square for watering. Early season performance of the square has seen good pace and bounce. The rest of the summer will be based on fulfilling a busy fixture list until the end of the season.
Paul has good experience of maintaining new grounds, having done similar at Haydock Cricket Club, and which he continues to oversee, eleven years later. Paul is confident that Westhoughton will be successful, but it needs the support from players and social members. Running a modern cricket clubs takes a lot of time and commitment from all concerned, and
Chairman, Gary Dixon comes at a high cost.
As an example, on the grounds side alone, the club has to commit around £40,000 each year to materials, machinery, consumables and wages, so it is important that they have the means to generate such figures by being organised and well run.
Westhoughton will, no doubt, attract new players. The club have a policy of not paying players, so rely on the fact that they want to join a forward thinking club with excellent facilities and good coaching programmes. Who knows, maybe the next Freddie is already turning his arm over in one of Westhoughton’s junior teams.
TWENTYQuestions
Frank Newberry - wants to learn to play the piano in another language and is gaga about Lady Gaga!
What would you change about yourself? I would get less annoyed with myself.
Who wouldn’t you like to be? I wouldn’t like to be anyone who was without hope.
Favourite record, and why? Lady Gaga sings three or four of my current favourites. It’s great that she can be so talented and so scary at the same time.
Who are you? Frank Newberry, Performance Consultant and Conference Speaker. I have been happily working in the turfcare sector for over twenty years.
Family status? I am married with three grown-up sons. Just to keep the balance my brother has three daughters.
Who’s your hero and why? My clients are all heroes. Any individual who wants to improve themselves or the work performance of their people is taking up a heroic position in my view. Their ‘heroism’ inspires me to do better.
What is your dream holiday? In recent years I have been asked to speak at conferences abroad. This makes it possible for me to travel to some of the places I have always wanted to visit. I can do my work at the conference and then have a few days holiday with my wife. I love the work I do so I guess a working holiday is my dream holiday.
What annoys you the most? More than anything else I get annoyed with myself.
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Who would you choose to spend a romantic evening with? My gorgeous wife.
If you won the lottery, what is the first thing you would do? I don’t do the lottery.
If you were to describe yourself as a musical instrument, what would you be and why? The tuba. I am somewhat round and I have a big mouth at one end.
What’s the best advice you have ever been given? Seek first to understand, then to be understood.
What's your favourite smell? I love the smells you get at the seaside. The sea air, hot dogs, candy floss etc.
What do you do in your spare time? I like to relax by reading whilst I am soaking in a nice hot bath.
What’s the daftest work related question you have ever been asked? I was once asked by a client to ‘keep my eye’ on someone during one of my training courses, because the client intended to sack him if I did not think he was up to the job. I was to be his last chance. Thankfully, I was able to
quickly explain that a lot of people behave quite differently on training courses than they do in real life, so his work on my course would not be a reliable indicator.
What’s your favourite piece of kit? It’s boring, I know, but I have two rather expensive, but cleverly designed and very robust flip chart stands that I like having around on seminars.
What three words would you use to describe yourself? Positive, competitive, expressive.
What talent would you like to have? I would like to be able to speak other languages and to play the piano.
What makes you angry? More than anything else, I get angry with myself. I tend to the view that a lot of the time, when people get angry, they are angry with themselves first. ‘Why did I trust this person?’ ‘Why did I not check this out properly?’ They cannot cope with feeling bad for very long, so they quickly turn their anger onto someone or something else.
What law/legislation would you like to see introduced? This is easy. In the UK we should have a ‘presumed consent’ or ‘opt- out’ organ donor card system. This would mean that, unless you had an ‘opt-out’ card on you, organs from your dead body could be used to save the lives of others. It is scandalous that thousands of people die every week because only a tiny proportion of the population carry donor cards.
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