Summer Sports - Cricket
ground but, in truth, the Southend groundsman wouldn’t let the county groundstaff anywhere near his square! I felt that was very unfair.” “We didn’t get enough time between games to prepare wickets. For example, we might have had a Test match, followed almost immediately by a county championship game. How could we do final preparation for the championship wicket when there was another game going on? Umpires marks on the championship track didn’t take that into consideration.”
Having been in the media spotlight for a good number of years, Pete has had his fair share of ‘comment’ about his wickets. “All the pundits have played at the highest level, so they do, in the main, know what they are talking about. Boycs [Geoff Boycott] is always straight talking. He’d tell you anything about anything! But, I did get on well with him.” “To be fair, groundsmen don’t always
read wickets correctly. There were a number of times a wicket would surprise me by how it behaved! At the end of the day, I was always treated fairly. You have to take the rough with the smooth but, in general, my pitches attracted good comments.”
“I do think that a programme
explaining what we do would make good TV. When the general public see cracks, they just think the wicket is going to fall apart! Harry Brind and I discussed this
some while ago, and suggested to Sky Sports that they should explain, with our assistance, how a wicket is prepared, and how and why every ground is different. A half hour slot before each Test match would be good viewing in my opinion, and help educate the public. It never happened.” “There’s been some talk about
‘doctored’ pitches. Before the rules were changed, that did use to happen a bit. I had one coach who wanted the track prepared to suit his bowling attack. I obliged, of course, but it backfired, and we lost the game. On the flip side, another coach just used to say ‘prepare me the best wicket you can and we’ll bat on it’. He was an Australian, and the difference in mindset was quite surprising. Viv Richards never used to look at a pitch before the toss. His attitude was, ‘I’ve got batters, I’ve got bowlers, so it doesn’t really matter’. That’s very old school, I guess. Now, we even have physios who look at the pitch and decide what it is going to do!” Working hours are a bone of contention with some cricket groundsmen, what’s Pete’s view? “We all come into this industry knowing what the working hours are. When I first joined, my contract stated ‘dawn to dusk’ but, with the introduction of day/night cricket, that obviously went out the window, even though my contract probably still stated it when I left Old
Trafford! I was a strong believer that, if the lads put in the hours during the season, then they would be rewarded in the winter. Don’t come into this line of work if you think it is going to be eight ’til five.”
“In the old days, during the winter the
groundstaff would be painting fences, decorating the changing rooms and even knocking down stands! Now, most grounds have their own maintenance teams and, given the additional summer hours worked, a degree of flexibility in the winter is a good thing.” With the loss of some high profile
groundsmen in the past few years, is Pete worried about the lack of youngsters coming into the profession? “Interesting one,” states Pete. “At Lancashire, I believe they did the right thing by promoting Matt [Merchant] to head groundsman. After all, he had worked under me for sixteen years, so was more than capable. You must promote from within, otherwise those lower down won’t feel there is any possibility of career development. And, of course, it opens up a vacancy on the first rung of the ladder.”
“Colleges have their place, but you
can’t beat learning the job on the ground. I used to work under Bert Flack, and he always said, ‘you’ll eventually get a feel for the ground. It will become second nature. You’ll make mistakes, but learn from them.’ I always say you can
“All the pundits have played at the highest level, so they do, in the main, know what they are talking about”
42 PC APRIL/MAY 2012
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