“We all struggle to provide the surfaces that our sports require with the funds we have available”
can be had, although due care must be taken when purchasing from this area. We can share machinery between clubs, we can hire contractors to carry out certain tasks such as spraying or vertidraining. On the mainland you also have access to trailers provided by the ECB, which carry all of the machinery required for end of season renovations. So, here we have another area where we can cut our cloth accordingly.
Labour
This is where things get difficult as everyone’s time is worth something. As I mentioned earlier, I’m fortunate in so much as I get paid for the work which I undertake; a huge number work for nothing. As with the materials and machinery, there is a large scope to adjust costs which are attributed to labour. This often runs parallel with the quality of the surface that we produce however. I often read of differing preparation times for a wicket, anything from five and fourteen days. The time we spend is often dictated by the quality requirement, the machinery available and the skill of the groundsman. Variances can also be found where we are preparing a new wicket, or whether we are reusing a wicket for a second or third match. A little while ago I estimated that we spend a mean average of eight hours preparation for each fixture at the college. To tie this all together, we have to combine the costs of labour, machinery and the materials which we use. Taking into account the costs of machinery, which I feel depreciates at thirty percent per year, an average skilled groundsman’s wage and what we spent on materials, I estimate that we spent approximately £20,000 maintaining our cricket facilities last year. Taking into account the variables that I mentioned above, I feel that this cost could be adjusted to anywhere between £17,500 and £60,000. If we take our £20,000 and we divide it
across the users of the cricket facilities, and factor in the amount of usage by each user, we would find that £4000 would be covered by school fees, and £16,000 by the clubs. We can further divide this by the income
streams which would be match fees, catering, and the occasional provision of accommodation. It wouldn’t be prudent of me to divulge what we charge for the use of our facilities, but I think that I can speak for our industry in general in saying that, aside from the clubs that consistently reside in the top tiers of our sports, we all struggle to provide the surfaces that our sports require with the funds that we have available.
My personal feeling is that we, as an industry, are nearing a chronic lack of facilities to play our sports on. This is as a result of a number of factors such as increased Health and Safety legislation, increased demands on the surfaces and the ongoing change in mindset where volunteers are proving more difficult to come by.
To prove my point, go and have a look at any industry where the workforce is made up of volunteers, and have a close look at the volunteers, how old are they? It is a sad fact that the volunteers are a dying breed. There is the odd exception to the rule, and that will always be the case. I often read of young men and women who want to volunteer their services but, upon closer inspection, we see that, in the main, these volunteers are willing to give up their time to ‘get their foot in the door’, and they soon move into the professional sector. There is no escaping the fact that soon their will be no place for volunteers, the ever increasing working regulations won’t allow it - a skilled, professional workforce will be a pre-requisite.
Soon, our industry will be left with only two options. Clubs will have to run as a business and all costs will have to be passed on to the end users, similar in this regard to how most golf clubs run. Or funding will be made available for the upkeep of the grounds by the sports governing bodies.
I feel that, with either of these scenarios
unlikely to happen, not only will the art of groundsmanship die off, but so will grassroots sports, which will, inevitably, lead to higher levels of obesity, crime, stress and a further stretched National Health Service. The possible ramifications are endless. Action must be taken at all levels to ensure that this does not happen.
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Telephone: 01604 750 555 | Facsimile: 01604 750 780 Website:
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Total Turf Solutions One trusted resource for your sports surfaces 91
Manchester College of Art & Technology
cross-section of total-play net system
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