Summer Sports - Cricket


used to when the tournament overall was shorter lasting. With the seven home games Hampshire have this season, I’m going to have to produce seven separate strips for them, and that puts extra pressure on the management of the square.” “Not so long ago, I’d get away with the whole of the home Twenty20 fixtures on three pitches, but not any more. Two or three days between games used to be fine, but now that matches are a week or even more apart, it’s too long a time to hang on to a pitch’s life. Preparing a fresh one is a better option.” “The current state of the fixture timetable is not the most popular with us groundsmen, you might say, but we have to go with what


works for counties commercially,” Nigel adds wryly. Sitting in the stand chatting to Nigel,


opposite the brand new Hilton Hotel complex that dominates the northern side of the ground, you realise just how impressive an arena the now-named Ageas Bowl is. Nigel has been head groundsman here since it opened for business as the Rose Bowl in 2001, when he’d already had a decade in charge at the County’s main ground at Southampton’s Northlands Road.


How did it all start?


“I was working on the cricket pitches at the Richard Taunton College in Southampton and the then chief executive of Hampshire


County Cricket Club asked me if I’d like to be an assistant groundsman at the club. I resisted the idea for a couple of years, but the offer remained and, in 1989, I joined the club as assistant to Tom Flintoft. I was actually the first full-time assistant groundsman employed by Hampshire.” “Tom left a couple of years later and


returned north, principally to get involved in the construction of Durham’s Chester-le- Street ground, and I took over at Northlands Road. I’ve been here ever since and this is my twenty-fifth and last season as head groundsman.” Nigel describes himself as an enthusiast


for the game of cricket rather than a fan. He remembers being on the boundary and


PC JUNE/JULY 2015 I 63


Page 1  |  Page 2  |  Page 3  |  Page 4  |  Page 5  |  Page 6  |  Page 7  |  Page 8  |  Page 9  |  Page 10  |  Page 11  |  Page 12  |  Page 13  |  Page 14  |  Page 15  |  Page 16  |  Page 17  |  Page 18  |  Page 19  |  Page 20  |  Page 21  |  Page 22  |  Page 23  |  Page 24  |  Page 25  |  Page 26  |  Page 27  |  Page 28  |  Page 29  |  Page 30  |  Page 31  |  Page 32  |  Page 33  |  Page 34  |  Page 35  |  Page 36  |  Page 37  |  Page 38  |  Page 39  |  Page 40  |  Page 41  |  Page 42  |  Page 43  |  Page 44  |  Page 45  |  Page 46  |  Page 47  |  Page 48  |  Page 49  |  Page 50  |  Page 51  |  Page 52  |  Page 53  |  Page 54  |  Page 55  |  Page 56  |  Page 57  |  Page 58  |  Page 59  |  Page 60  |  Page 61  |  Page 62  |  Page 63  |  Page 64  |  Page 65  |  Page 66  |  Page 67  |  Page 68  |  Page 69  |  Page 70  |  Page 71  |  Page 72  |  Page 73  |  Page 74  |  Page 75  |  Page 76  |  Page 77  |  Page 78  |  Page 79  |  Page 80  |  Page 81  |  Page 82  |  Page 83  |  Page 84  |  Page 85  |  Page 86  |  Page 87  |  Page 88  |  Page 89  |  Page 90  |  Page 91  |  Page 92  |  Page 93  |  Page 94  |  Page 95  |  Page 96  |  Page 97  |  Page 98  |  Page 99  |  Page 100  |  Page 101  |  Page 102  |  Page 103  |  Page 104  |  Page 105  |  Page 106  |  Page 107  |  Page 108  |  Page 109  |  Page 110  |  Page 111  |  Page 112  |  Page 113  |  Page 114  |  Page 115  |  Page 116  |  Page 117  |  Page 118  |  Page 119  |  Page 120  |  Page 121  |  Page 122  |  Page 123  |  Page 124  |  Page 125  |  Page 126  |  Page 127  |  Page 128  |  Page 129  |  Page 130  |  Page 131  |  Page 132  |  Page 133  |  Page 134  |  Page 135  |  Page 136  |  Page 137  |  Page 138  |  Page 139  |  Page 140  |  Page 141  |  Page 142  |  Page 143  |  Page 144  |  Page 145  |  Page 146  |  Page 147  |  Page 148  |  Page 149  |  Page 150  |  Page 151  |  Page 152  |  Page 153  |  Page 154  |  Page 155  |  Page 156