Winter Sports - Rugby Union
“ 44 I PC APRIL/MAY 2014
It is like plate spinning; that is the best analogy I could give you. Sometimes, you come in at half seven, get the first plate up and running, then you go to the second one, then come back to the first one, then you go to the third one, then come back to the second one, and our day just goes like that all the time
have identified which pitches, we are going to have small spectator boxes added on to them. That is in the planning stage just now.
As an example of our regular usage, all twelve pitches were in use this last Sunday. On the grass pitches, I would reckon about sixty hours a week between them. Then, about fifty-five hours per week on each synthetic pitch. And, periodically, that spikes quite high, especially around about the international breaks. So, when we have the international teams here, that can rise by up to twenty hours on the grass pitches.
How many staff do you have?
There are fourteen altogether, including me. We recently took on Ed Mowe, who joined us from his role as Head Groundsman at Leicester City; he is still finding his feet and working his way into the position, because it is a completely different environment to club football.
What are those differences?
In my opinion, it is the commercial operation that underpins the park for its funding. That’s the huge difference. League clubs don’t have that; they have better corporate use at the end of the season, but we get that every day of the week. For example, we had a massive commercial event here recently and we have another McDonalds mini world cup event here soon. And we have to factor that in around professional use.
It is like plate spinning; that is the best It’s like plate spinning
analogy I could give you. Sometimes, you come in at half seven, get the first plate up and running, then you go to the second one, then come back to the first one, then you go to the third one, then come back to the second one, and our day just goes like that all the time.
What’s the daily routine for your team?
We generally report in for a 7.30am start but, sometimes, it may have to be a little earlier, depending on what we have on that day. We have a staff meeting every day where I brief the lads on the day’s work; what’s going on and what the likely impact on the department might be. I will give them a heads up on the development, so they are on board with what we are doing all the time.
There is no set finishing time. We should finish around 4.30pm but, very often, we
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