Dave and Graeme Balmer
Brothers in arms
Graeme Balmer has joined his brother, Stadium Manager Dave Balmer, at the Kingsholm Stadium, home of Gloucester RFC.
Laurence Gale MSc catches up with the duo to find out how they are both coping
I
t’s been five years since I last visited the Kingsholm stadium, home of Gloucester Rugby Club, so I thought it was about time to call in and catch up on the latest gossip and see how the pitch had been performing. It was coming to the end of a long, hard season in which the club had done well, finishing third in the Aviva Premiership behind the winners Bath and second placed Exeter. Even though the domestic rugby season had finished, the pitch was still being used to accommodate Churchill Cup matches. In fact, when I arrived, Dave Balmer, the Stadium Manager, and his brother Graeme, were getting the pitch ready to host two of these matches; England Saxons v Tonga and Italy v Russia, both to be held on Saturday 12th June, with kick offs at 2.30pm and 5.00pm.
Graeme joined the grounds team at Kingsholm, as Head Groundsman, last December. He is no stranger to the ground, having spent many years helping his brother whilst he was the Head Groundsman at King’s School. However, after serving the school for twenty-five years he felt he needed a change.
He is self-employed and contracted to work thirty hours a week at the club. This allows him to undertake other work as well; his services are used by local bowls and cricket clubs, whilst he is also an ECB county adviser. In this role he works closely with Jason Hobs, another of Gloucestershire’s county advisers.
The pitch looked very good. Dave and Graeme said that the pitch had recovered really well from the severe winter weather and the exceptionally
dry spring. Also, they were not able to carry out a full pitch renovation, knowing that they had to accommodate the Churchill Cup matches. The brothers had, therefore, decided to split the renovation work into two cycles, doing some work on the pitch as soon as the domestic playing season finished, May 7th, and continuing straight after the Churchill Cup Games. Because of the split renovation schedule, they could only carry out a basic renovation programme: mowing the sward down, verti-draining the pitch, topdressing and overseeding. Only forty tonnes of 70/30 (sand/soil) was applied and eight bags of seed (4 bags of MM50, 4 bags MM60). It was a case of raising the height of cut until the grass had germinated, and then mowing on a regular basis to help the sward tiller.
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