Summer Sports - Tennis
“A call from a specialist groundcare employment agency changed everything. Would I be interested in taking over as groundsman at Sundridge Park? I was asked out of the blue!”
High summer at Sundridge Park when the grass courts reign supreme
snow, it’s year round tennis on the four courts we have here. The members love them.”
Steve Johnson shows the sand-filled material that makes the SmashCourts® ever-ready for play and easy to maintain
I know it’s played indoors too), it survives around the calendar because of all-weather surfaces. Those unzipping their racket bags as I talk to Steve were heading for the striking terracotta coloured artificial clay courts, which have a 14mm loose surface of sand filled polyethylene material. “These SmashCourts®
are very low
maintenance,” says Steve. “All I have to do is brush them daily ahead of play, and once a year I arrange for a contractor to deep clean them, which means a day’s play is lost. Apart from that and lying
The Sundridge Park club is ‘Clubmarked’ by the LTA, a distinction afforded to clubs that check out as purveyors of best practice in a particular sport, first introduced by Sport England just over a decade ago. It has nineteen courts in all. Eight are grass, seven are tarmac, and there are the aforementioned four ‘clay’ surfaces. Members can play there, even under floodlights, pretty well whenever they want, and it has a coaching pedigree of some note with former Davis Cup player, Richard Whichello, leading it. It’s not just a club with tradition; it has ambition, highlighted by plans to upgrade the playing facilities.
Steve is a practical and adaptable groundsman. His passion remains firmly focused on the club’s grass courts though. He tells me how he was head hunted for the job there just as he had accepted a golf greenkeeping position at The London Club.
“I started my turf career twenty-two years ago at the one time Hall’s Sports Ground, now the site of Dartford FC of
the Conference Premier League and a John Lloyd Tennis Centre. I used to look after grass tennis courts, bowling greens, and a cricket pitch,” he said. “NVQ qualifications from Hadlow College and a later spell at Redlibetts Golf Club in Kent meant I was well on my way professionally. Beating off dozens of applicants for a job at The London Club made me feel especially good, but a call from a specialist groundcare employment agency changed everything. Would I be interested in taking over as groundsman at Sundridge Park? I was asked out of the blue!”
The club told him that the grass courts were its biggest asset. That’s what enticed him the most. It was an enormous challenge and one that he couldn’t resist. He’s been at the club now for eleven years.
When Steve came to Sundridge Park there were twelve grass courts and, of the eight that remain, two may switch to clay. It’s a big area of debate right now amongst the membership and one that may have an effect on other areas of proposed development in the coming months.
Steve shows me the run of six main DECEMBER/JANUARY 2014 PC 55
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