qualifications, Tony secured a job at the Shell-owned Lensbury sports grounds in Teddington, staying there for a decade, before moving to a a position with commodities dealer, Cargill, who owned Knowle Hill Park in Cobham, a tenure he kept for nine years. In the mid-1990s, Tony entered the private education sector, joining the neighbouring Reed School as head groundsman. It’s a period the 62 year- old recalls with fondness. “It was a great time in my life - both the atmosphere and my colleagues made it a marvellous place to work,” he says. “I ended up leaving for two reasons. Firstly, the job at Danes Hill came up, which offered good opportunities for my career, and secondly, I often came to loggerheads about our budget and our provisions, which makes what can be an already challenging job that bit more difficult.”


Imagine his joy, therefore, when Tony found that his new employer shared the same beliefs in professional development that he did - a vision that has ensured that all the team have been trained up in everything, from handling pesticides and working at heights, to fire procedures and other know-how necessary to tackle the daily requirements of the job. It is this commitment to investment that shapes the image of the school and Tony’s work, yet it isn’t one without its challenges and, arguably, the biggest, says Tony, is striking the balance of necessary maintenance work with the


“hammering” the pitches receive through intensive use.


“Many of our main rugby pitches will often serve a dual use, for under-8s football, with the smaller sized pitches set across the full-sized ones. This can sometimes cause wear and damage spots, which can prove difficult to remedy,” he explains. When multi-use is the school culture, the challenge to the turfcare team of maintaining pitches with such an actively diverse usage is that it often has to contend with all manner of events staged on the surfaces - the end of year ‘prom’ being a prime one.


As a focal point of the school calendar, the event is one of Danes Hill’s biggest annual celebrations, when a large marquee is erected on the ‘main field’ in front of the impressive pine cricket pavilion, which houses modern catering and kitchen facilities. “It’s a wonderful spectacle yet, once it’s over, we have to wait and see whether the plastic sheeting has killed the grass or not,” Tony states candidly. “This can be highly weather


dependant, but the first thing we do is to get the grass standing up by spiking and then aerating. We’ll then cut the grass short, feed and irrigate as the turf won’t have seen moisture for several days.” Contending with the impact of the school’s social events is an important enough aspect of Tony’s task but, keeping the pitches in prime condition given the heavy use and varying functions, often involves a fair degree of


Tony Steadman with camera shy Pepsi


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