Meet the
Pitchcare team
Contents Issue 61 June/July 2015
DAVE SALTMAN Managing Director
t: 01902 440 254 e:
dave@pitchcare.com
JOHN RICHARDS Operations Director
t: 01902 440 256 e:
john@pitchcare.com Nigel Gray, Hampshire County Cricket Club
LAURENCE GALE Editor
t: 01902 440 260 e:
laurence@pitchcare.com
KERRY HAYWOOD Features Editor
t: 01952 897 416 e:
kerry@pitchcare.com The end of a long innings
Pitchcare went to the Ageas Bowl - since 2001, the home of Hampshire Cricket and one of England’s newest international venues - to meet Nigel Gray, a man retiring at the end of the year after twenty-five years as the County’s Head Groundsman.
Golf PETER BRITTON
Advertising & Production t: 01952 898 516
e:
peter@pitchcare.com CHRIS JOHNSON
Training & Development t: 01902 440 263
e:
chris@pitchcare.com Quality not ‘quantity’... 12
A career path that began as a trainee quantity surveyor has seen Neil Ballingall progress to become the Course Superintendent at one of Scotland’s most revered venues - Fairmont St Andrews.
Travers perking up the course! 18
The southern coast of Ireland, around the city of Cork, is not short of a golf course or two, such is the splendour of the topography. So, when GCSAI editor, Alan Mahon, visited Monkstown Golf Club in the cold February sunshine, he was pleasantly surprised to find a course thriving against the local competition
ALASTAIR BATTRICK IT Manager
t: 01902 440 255 e:
al@pitchcare.com DAN HUGHES
Sales &Marketing t: 01902 440 258
e:
sales@pitchcare.com
No part of this publication may be reproduced without prior permission of the publisher. All rights reserved. Views expressed in this publication are not necessarily those of the publisher. Editorial contributions are published entirely at the editor’s discretion and may be shortened if space is limited. Pitchcare make every effort to ensure the accuracy of the contents but accepts no liability for its consequences. Images are presumed copyright of the author or Pitchcare unless otherwise stated. Pitchcare Magazine is printed by the Gemini Press, Dolphin Way, Shoreham-by-Sea, West Sussex BN43 6NZ
Pitchcare.com Allscott Park, Allscott, Telford Shropshire TF6 5DY
Tel: 01952 897 910 Fax: 01952 247 369 Email:
editor@pitchcare.com
www.pitchcare.com 2 I PC JUNE/JULY 2015 12 Neil Ballingall, Fairmont St Andrew 30 Graham Pickin, Phoenix Sports & Social Club It’s not big... but it is clever! 22
For Martyn Savident, Course Manager at La Grande Mare Golf Club on Guernsey, things took a decided turn for the worse, which saw him spend a considerable amount of time in Southampton General’s cardio unit. Now, thankfully recovered, we catch up with a man who says he “feels like a teenager again”.
Sports Clubs Pickin - his moments
Managing a sixty hectare green oasis in the industrial heartland of South Yorkshire requires special skills, especially when it’s a multisports venue and you are a qualified greenkeeper. However, Head ‘Groundsman’ Graham Pickin is proving both adaptable and resourceful, as he explains.
Go Carefully! 36
With a career path that includes greenkeeping, six years self employment and a stint at Glasgow Rangers, Niall Gibb now finds himself working for Fawley Parish Council as Head Groundsman at the quirkily named Gang Warily Recreation and Community Centre.
The standard you walk past... 44
Set in spectacular surroundings in the heart of the Shropshire countryside, Lilleshall is one of the UK’s National Sports Centres, providing training facilities for a number of the national governing bodies and for the country’s leading sportsmen and women
Cover Story - 62
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