Educational Establishments
important part of things here,
“Synthetic turf is becoming an ever more
fixtures we have”
certainly with the need to meet the level of
The new 3G pitch has allowed for an increase in fixtures ... and revenue Dr David English CBE The Bunbury Festival
PAUL Collingwood helped launch the 27th Bunbury Under-15 Cricket Festival at Durham University, welcoming the cream of young cricketing talent from all over England to the North East.
The Durham and former England skipper greeted the players, appropriately enough, at Collingwood College, to welcome the four teams from the North, Midlands, London & East and South & West, and to present their Bunbury caps.
The festival, the brainchild of Dr David English CBE, is renowned for nurturing the next generation of stars - Collingwood himself is a former Bunbury player, having played in 1991 with the likes of fellow emerging talents Marcus Trescothick and Graeme Swann - as well as educating the boys in the spirit of cricket and camaraderie.
Of the current England squad, only the South African-educated Jonathan Trott and Kevin Pietersen missed out on cutting their teeth at the five-day event. On average, two cricketers a year have emerged to become international players.
In the twenty-seven years of the festival, sixty boys have gone on to play international cricket, whilst 306 have played first-class cricket.
Many current Durham CCC players have also represented their region in the festival with - as well as Paul Collingwood - Graham Onions, Gordon Muchall, Chris Rushworth, Phil Mustard, Ben Stokes and Scott Borthwick all Bunbury’s in their junior days.
Collingwood added: “Being picked to play in the Bunbury Festival and having an opportunity to represent the North was something a little bit special. The experience of playing in the festival gave me an insight into what it would take to be a professional cricketer.”
“Looking back on it now, it also taught me that, as pressure mounts, it is important to remember that, at the end of the day, it is still the same game you used to love playing with your mates back home.”
96 PC OCTOBER/NOVEMBER 2013
low as possible,” Peter says. Durham’s outreach projects are as important as their elite sporting provision, which work in tandem to help produce students that not only excel in sport but are armed with training and coaching skills that will stand them in good stead upon graduation. A host of professional and amateur outfits, including Durham City Hockey, Durham City Athletics Club, Durham City Striders and Hartlepool United FC all use the university’s facilities to train or for competition. ‘Performance, participation, community’ is Durham’s unofficial sporting mantra, and the fusion of elite and community appears to be working well, both in terms of the university improving links with the community, generating enough income to fulfill its aims and to maintain the high calibre of sporting staff that entice new students. Durham has a team devoted solely to the various outreach projects, with an ever-changing body of eight staff members tasked with delivering the work on the ground. “We’re always on the look out for new opportunities to generate income or exposure,” Peter explains. “We don’t always charge for use of our facilities if both parties can benefit from supportive arrangements.”
“It’s getting tougher for universities to access funding,” Peter adds, “but if you keep delivering great programmes that have a visible benefit for the community, you’ll be viewed as a trusted and reliable investor, which stands you in better stead to continue gaining financial support through grants, former students, commercial partners and sponsors. You live and die by what you deliver.” Working under senior project manager
Ian Tubman for both 3G schemes, Will Roberts adds: “The second 3G pitch will be tested to IRB and FIFA 2-Star standards, allowing top-flight rugby and football, as well as lacrosse, to be played on it. The surfaces are retested annually for characteristics such as head impact and ball roll to ensure they remain at the required high standard of performance.” Engineering solutions have advanced since the first 3G pitch was installed, he
adds. “Different shockpads and technologies could have been introduced, however we decided to, once again, specify a Brock Shockpad due to the proven playing characteristics on the previous pitch.” “The university has learned much
from managing the first pitch, which has certainly proved its worth,” adds Peter, whose grounds team will maintain the synthetic surfaces year-round, after responsibility was passed to them following an initial ‘proving’ period of six months. “We’ve specified a few things differently with the second pitch, such as full 500 lux floodlights, flags drilled into the ground and redesigned dug-outs,” he says.
The introduction of more synthetic pitches into the sporting environment is just part of the big developments Steve was talking about, as the role of the grounds team moves far beyond turf confines.
“It was all natural back when I started;
there was no real maintenance involved with artificial at all. That’s all changed. Synthetic turf is becoming an ever more important part of things here, certainly with the need to meet the level of fixtures we have, some of which - elite level fixtures in particular - simply wouldn’t go ahead during the wet winter months. The technology has moved on so much, so the maintenance of it has become more sophisticated,” he explains.
“3G is a big investment, so it’s our job to ensure the expected lifetime of the carpet is met. We’ll brush the carpet once a week to prevent the debris build- up which comes with such high footfall,” he continues. “We dress the sand-based pitches monthly and clean and brush our oldest water-based hockey pitch. For a deeper clean we use a national contractor, Peter Day, who comes in annually to mark the lines and professionally clean the synthetic turf and refresh the rubber crumb.” Construction of the artificial pitches has allowed Durham to host far more sport than they would otherwise have been able to - football alone is played seven days a week.
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