Winter Sports
Only two football clubs in the world have been awarded the FIFA Order of Merit, given for their role in football history. One is Real Madrid and the other is Sheffield FC.
No, not United or Wednesday, just Sheffied, and many in the city aren’t even aware of the club’s importance in the scheme of things.
Jim Cook talks to the club’s groundsman, Peter Bowden, and chairman, Richard Timms
“You get involved with the club, it’s that sort of place. We have a basic minimum contract and then everything else is out of goodwill”
behind it and it is a wet site. We just have to do the best we can, and it is certainly a lot better than it was fifteen years ago as, back then, it was unplayable.” Sheffield FC has had somewhat of a nomadic existence during its 155-year lifespan, playing at more than ten different sites across the city, including Don Valley Stadium, but none of which they could call theirs. Dronfield, just south of Sheffield, is the latest home for the club and, notably, their first official ground. The pitch is located just next to a pub, which was also bought with the lease for the grounds back in 2001 and provides an extra form of revenue for the amateur side. Before the club arrived at Dronfield, the site was already used as a football pitch, but there were no stands or administration buildings as now exist. The pitch endures heavy usage
throughout the year and Peter told of how he manages to keep it in good condition with limited resources. “We get about 70-85 games a year on that pitch and we had twenty before the season had even started! It is in the best condition it has ever been this year, and I think that’s because of the weather; it’s been so wet. One of the biggest problems we have is that we only have one sprinkler and it’s just powered off a normal garden hose so, when it’s a dry summer, we literally have to water twenty-four hours a day seven days a week to try and keep the grass growing. I'll go down at night and move the sprinkler or, because I live in Dronfield, I pass there a few times a day and will move it then.” Peter uses a Ransomes triple mower to cut Sheffield FC’s pitch. “In the summer I’ll cut it four times a week and we renovate in May. At the moment we’re
probably cutting it twice a week as it’s slowed down now, of course. We brush slit and roll it before every game with a Sisis Quadraplay to try and keep it open,” he added. Peter started his company in 1980 and, for some time, it simply consisted of him, a mower and a vehicle. He has steadily increased the size of his business since then, whilst also running a farm at the same time.
“It all started off from nothing," he said. “I started doing pub car parks for mates and had an old lawn mower, an old Land Rover and borrowed £80 off a mate to get started. Since then, we’ve slowly expanded, we haven’t gone mad, and just picked up a few new contracts each year and kept building them up. Sheffield FC is not our main job or our main income. Our main work is the schools and colleges. I have fifty acres of
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