Welwyn with pride!
Chris Sherriff, Greenkeeper at Welwyn & District Bowls Club, and County Greens Advisor for Hertfordshire Bowls, talks about his role at the club and the initiatives he has put in place
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“It is a constant trade-off between the health of the green and the surface we want to play on”
Chris Sherriff, Greenkeeper, Welwyn & District Bowls Club
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’ve been playing bowls at Welwyn & District Bowls Club for over thirty years and, in that time, experienced lots of, shall we say, variable surfaces.
Like so many others, I started at the local park. As a child, I recall trying the game at Phear Park in Devon whilst on holiday about forty-five years ago.
In 1989, our club took over the bowls facility from the Parish Council. It was a difficult time as, like most bowls clubs, we had no money and the local authority objected to the £4,000 a year it was costing to maintain the green and club house. The green was in poor condition and many visiting clubs cringed at the thought of playing on our green.
Our major advantage was that we had an excellent group of willing members. In our first year, we purchased a 21” Lloyds Paladin mower (still in use today) and employed a local trainee groundsman to cut the grass. Regretably, he failed to turn up on a regular basis, so we decided to take it on ourselves.
For the rest of that summer, we shut the green between 5.00pm and 6.00pm each evening for cutting. My old mate, Mo, and I shared the cutting as we were both working in full time jobs. It was evident that this would not be sufficient input to the green, and we persuaded a reluctant Mo to take on the job of greenkeeper, as he retired from work at the end of the season. We purchased a SISIS Rotorake (still in use today) and a Turfman, and off we went.
Those first couple of years were difficult, but great fun. I became green ranger (for us this meant the liaison between greenkeeper and members), and all members were asked to speak with me, not the greenkeeper, if they had comments on the way the green played. I forgot to mention, ol’ Mo was a Yorkshireman and, if you said something in the wrong tone, he was ready to walk off the job. Despite this, we all loved him. He was a true friend to me and the club. Regrettably, he passed away last autumn. Mo looked after our green for ten
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