A new job with new challenges faced Malcolm Gardner when he took on the role of Grounds Manager at the British Airways Concorde Club
And it’s not all PLANE
AFTER 24 years working in the private school sector (20 years at St Edmund’s School Canterbury and 4 years at St George’s College Weybridge), I decided I needed a fresh challenge working in a different environment. So this year I left my post of Head Groundsman at St. George’s and moved across the City to take up the post of Grounds Manager at the British Airways Concorde Club sports grounds near Heathrow. I also wanted to get back to a more hands-on role. This new post gives me the perfect opportunity to bring some much-needed organisation and an extra pair of hands to the fore. I duly arrived in the midst of the summer sports season (end of June) to be confronted with a very busy sports ground that boasts a membership of 21,000 (though not all actively participating in sport) and provides a wide rage of sport facilities for its members that predominantly use the club in the evenings and weekends. The grounds cover 4.5 hectares providing the following facilities:
2 cricket squares - square 1 (16 match strips) square 2 (10 match strips) 2 artificial cricket wickets 3 artificial cricket nets 12 tennis courts – 6 all weather
SAILING
porous macadam and 6 grass courts 1 bowls green 1 rugby pitch 5 football pitches 1 grass hockey pitch 2 tarmacadam netball courts 1 rifle range
During the summer a number of additional sports pitches are marked out on the outfields; these include, softball and a couple of 5-a-side pitches.
I have inherited a staff of three, who have between them several years of experience working at the club, my assistant, Ben Able, has been at the BA Concorde club for five years, Paul Knape two years and our trainee groundsman, Matthew Parry, has been here twelve months. For the outfield areas we elected to
keep the height of the grass at the same height (25mm), we cut our football pitches during the winter, in expectation of a long hot summer ahead.
This worked well for us with our grass visibly better able to cope with the heat at the height of the heatwave without overstretching ourselves with watering. We were also fortunate that the cricket section were very understanding of our need to cut a
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