Summer Sports - Cricket
GETTING Personal...
Clive Croft - his cooking would put and end to dictators!
Who are you? Clive Croft, Assistant Groundsman and Grounds Chairman at Four Elms Cricket Club.
Family status? Single, but with a partner, Claire.
Who’s your hero and why? My Dad; he taught me to fish, fix an engine and be honourable.
What would you change about yourself? I’d like to be more ugly.
What's your guilty pleasure? Malt whisky.
What’s been the highlight of your career so far? Helping bring a product to the UK that changed lives.
Which three people, living or dead, would you invite to a dinner party? Adolf Hitler, Idi Amin and Pol Pot - I could have poisoned them with my cooking before they got going.
If you could be anyone for a day, who would it be and why? Neil Armstrong - to look back at the Earth from the Moon, priceless.
Do you have any bad habits? A sweet tooth; causing carnage in the kitchen.
... or any good ones? Not that I know of!
Do you go to bed worrying about the next day’s workload? Yes, and I wake up during the night when I think of a solution of the way to find it.
What are you reading at the moment? Practical Photography - I don’t have the patience for books, or instructions for that matter.
What are your pet peeves? People eating cereal out of a packet with their hands.
If you could go anywhere right now, where would it be? Mauritius. What’s the best part of your job? I like what I do. … and the worst? The money. Do you have a lifetime ambition? To catch a salmon.
Favourite record, and why? I Don’t Like Mondays by the Boomtown Rats (it’s playing now) - who does!
Who would you choose to spend a romantic evening with? Claire (my better half).
If you won the lottery, what is the first thing you would do? Re-lay the ground!
If you were to describe yourself as a musical instrument, what would you be and why? A cello - I have many strings to my bow! What’s the best advice you have ever been given? Duck. What’s your favourite smell? Cut grass. What do you do in your spare time? Fish, shoot and play cricket.
What’s the daftest work related question you have ever been asked? When I said a patient (in an NHS hospital) had “gone to a better place”, the enquirer replied “where, the Nuffield (private hospital)?”
What's your favourite piece of kit? My Lexus RX hybrid car.
What three words would you use to describe yourself? Honourable, flexible, diligent. What talent would you like to have? To play the guitar.
What law/legislation would you like to see introduced? The death penalty for treason - and terrorism too!
82 I PC APRIL/MAY 2015 The local stoolball team use the ground ...
Various members of the committee in action. Here, Alan Crowhurst and Andy Hills (Chairman) share a record breaking opening partnership ...
“We’ve just started looking at
our profiles and soil makeup this year, with the aim to understand what’s going on underneath and how it affects things on top.” “We are currently involved with
Jason Carr from JGC SportsTurf Ltd in improving the outfield drainage, having had ditches installed around the whole ground last spring. We were suffering from run-off from the neighbouring fields and ménages, so we needed to take some radical action. This has improved the situation considerably, but now we have identified that compaction has occurred over the years, partly due to foot but also vehicle traffic, which uses the outfield to get their cars as close to the pavilion as possible. I think we are one of the few grounds in the area which has this problem.” “We also intend getting the
square deep aerated next autumn, following trials this year at Kent’s County Ground and the results Peter Robinson from the KCB has observed.”
In such a rural setting, are pests
a problem? “Dog walkers.” affirms Clive. “Dogs are kept out by making the stiles higher which, to be fair, probably deters the owners more than the pooches. I wouldn’t mind so much if they cleaned up after they’d walked their dogs!” “Rabbits aren’t, thankfully, too much of an issue, even though Bough Beech Reservoir, where myxomatosis was first introduced, is only two miles away. Foxes can leave their mark, but nothing a trowel can’t sort. Worms are sprayed with carbendazim and, although we get some leatherjackets, they have never created too much of an issue, although the daddy longlegs are a bit of a nuisance at the end of season dinner.” “We get a bit of red thread and
some fairy rings. The former is controlled with nitrogen applications; the latter we accept and manage our best fixtures to avoid the worst affected pitches.” And how important do you
consider the local flora and fauna? “We have planted various trees
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