Summer Sports - Cricket
Damon Willetts
Worcestershire County Cricket Club’s New Road ground is no stranger to flooding and, when the Environment Agency issued a flood alert for the area, Head Groundsman, Tim
Packwood knew what was heading his way.
So, a quick call was made to Damon Willetts, the new Head Groundsman at Kidderminster Cricket Club, to prepare him for his baptism of fire!
74 PC JUNE/JULY 2012
the country received well over 130mm of rain during April and May. Many cricket clubs had to cancel matches, often due to the fact that they simply could not get machinery on to their squares to prepare pitches as the outfields were at field capacity. Worcestershire County Cricket Club’s
A baptism of fire ... and water T
his spring could go down on record as one of the wettest starts to a cricket season for decades, with rain falling on a daily basis for the best part of a month. Some parts of
New Road ground is no stranger to flooding, sitting, as it does, alongside the River Severn. So, when floodwater reached four metres on the 1st May, resulting in a partial flooding of the ground on three sides of the square, their Chief Executive, David Leatherdale, and Head Groundsman, Tim Packwood, put a contingency plan into action, removing
machinery, furniture and consumables out of harms way. They had also alerted Kidderminster Cricket Club (their main outground) that their Chester Road facilities might be required to host the up- and-coming CB40 game against The Netherlands on 7th May and, possibly, the County Championship game against Surrey due to start on 9th May. Tim Packwood contacted our editor to see if he would be interested in following events. Without hesitation, he was hot footing it across to Kidderminster where he was met with a flurry of activity, with most of the county’s groundstaff, including Tim, on hand to help Damon Willetts, the Kidderminster Head Groundsmen, set up the ground for the bank holiday game. The Worcestershire groundstaff had
brought with them a number of flat sheets to help cover up the ‘Kiddy’ square, along
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