contracting business. His predecessor also left him with an indelible mindset that he has appreciated ever since. “What I remember most about my time working with Steve is that it taught me an important truth about grassed sports surfaces, and that is the supreme value of appearance. If it looks really good before use, then the pressure is off, and everyone is concentrating on a fine sporting contest. Certainly, as far as sport at school is concerned, we groundsmen can definitely create a feel-good factor.”
I spend a lot of my time dovetailing pitch preparation. Fifteen years ago, I didn’t have lacrosse and rounders to think about”
As we stood watching final morning work on the school’s cricket pitch, ahead of an under- 15 match that afternoon, this was overwhelmingly apparent with the biscuit-coloured pitch strip, the perfect white crease markings, the neatly mown outfield, and the screens in place ready for action. What youngster wouldn’t want to play cricket seeing all this? Caterham is both a senior and
preparatory school. Since 1995 it has been co-educational. It offers a wide choice of grass surface sports: rugby, football, hockey, lacrosse, cricket and athletics. Its seventy-six acre grounds, nestling in the North Downs, provide a perfect setting for them all, but chalky ground conditions and ever broadening pressure on facilities put John and his team to the test daily.
“It’s like a home,” said John.
“We’ve got the same number of rooms, but the family’s got bigger. I spend a lot of my time dovetailing pitch preparation. Fifteen years ago, I didn’t have lacrosse and rounders to think about.”
John has an assistant head
groundsman and three skilled groundsmen, plus a gardener and an all-rounder in his department. He says he’d love to have all the games scheduling notified in advance by the school’s PE department, so they could pre- plan work scheduling days ahead -
have it all neatly laid out on a whiteboard, so everybody knows, at all times, where they’re supposed to be and what they have to do there. “It doesn’t quite work out like that,” he says. “What we do is micro-manage.
It isn’t ideal, but it gets us through the mess. By about three o’clock on day one, I work out what I think we need to do on days two, three, four and five based on what the PE department tell me. At the end of each day the whole of the team - all seven of us - have a half hour tea-break and discuss the day ahead and, of course, any hiccups from that day’s work. This works pretty well and everyone at least knows what’s expected of them tomorrow, though, often as not, it’s a moveable feast.” The day I was at the school
there were district athletics and A level practical exams, not to mention the under-15 cricket match, overlapping on the same grass. This is a pressure unique to schools pitch work. It all looked amazingly immaculate. Take a bow Caterham School Groundstaff Department.
John is still a rugby man
through and through but, this time of year, it’s cricket that is his passion. It’s a game that’s grown on him over the years. Now, it is quite a big part of his professional life. He is Chairman of the Surrey Cricket Groundsmen Association and also the ECB’s county pitch advisor for Surrey, getting called out regularly to carry out pitch inspections at clubs and schools across the county. “My cricket pitch inspection duties are time consuming, but very enjoyable,” he says. “I love having ‘out of school’ pitch responsibilities. I would relish still more but, this year, I’m having to throttle back just a little because it is the school’s bi-centenary year and the extra duties here, because of this, come first.
John never hides his sporting instinct. “To succeed as a groundsman you need adrenalin,
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