“Why the hell is he doing that when 65,000 people are about to jump up and down on it?”
Earley... and A
t the mention of the Isle of Wight you’d be forgiven if Cowes Week came first to mind, the largest
sailing regatta of its type in the world. However, the island is also home to another monumental annual event. The Isle of Wight Festival is a three day music gathering that has played host to some of the biggest names in music including Jimi Hendrix, Free and Bob Dylan. After an absence of thirty-two years, the festival returned to the island in 2002, and has grown in popularity year on year. June 2010 will see 65,000 revellers descend upon Seaclose Park and call the Isle of Wight their home for three days. Pan Publicity’s’ Greg Doggett combined his love of music, and a tip off from client Charterhouse Turf Machinery, to find out whose job it was to plan and prepare the island’s grounds for such a massive event - and then
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return it to normal again after the festival goers have staggered off the island!
Seaclose Park is a multi sports venue owned by the Isle of Wight Council and the job falls to Andrew Earley, Contracts Inspector for the Parks and Countryside Division. The task of getting the island ‘festival ready’ is enormous, and the buck does ultimately stop with him. It helps that Andrew was born and
bred on the island, and that he has worked at the Council since he left Carisbrooke High School (near Newport) in 1985. “I always liked being outdoors and knew that a desk job wasn’t for me,” he explained. “When I left school at sixteen, I applied for a place on a government funded Grounds Maintenance Youth Training Scheme. This supplied me with a good, broad overview of the skills that I would need later on to look after all of the different
grounds on the island. Once the course was completed, I took a job at the council as a School’s Groundsman, looking after a catchment area of sixty schools”.
In 1990, the Grounds Maintenance Department was privatised to become ‘Group 90’ and then ‘N-viro Grounds Maintenance’ where Andrew became the Contracts Manager. But, by 2002, and coincidentally the same year the Festival was re-established, he took up the position of Contracts Inspector back with the Council.
“I contract monitor a core workforce of fifteen to oversee the maintenance and upkeep of 100 sites all over the northern part of the island, including football pitches, bowling greens, parks, gardens, ornamental areas and a pitch and putt, in addition to the festival that is held on Seaclose Park each year. You can appreciate I’m kept very busy!” says
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