Pitchcare Many hands make light work
The Essex town of Wickford sits midway between Billericay and Rayleigh and just a few miles inland from Southend-on-Sea. With a population of 32,500 there never seems to be a shortage of locals who want to play cricket for the town’s club, which runs five Saturday sides, two Sunday teams and various mid-week and T20 sides
He captained the 1st XI from 1897 to 1925 and held and then from 1946 to his death in 1949. It was said that the only way to get into the 1st XI was to drink in his pub! By 1912, the club had sixty-one in the 2nd XI” before the First World War and went on to play for Essex and England. He was tall, strong and had feet so large that one writer boot with his own shoe on. He was a great all his right. He achieved 1000 runs and 100 wickets for Essex in each season between 1935 and 1939, cheerful and “a thoroughly nice man”. Talking of thoroughly nice men, the club’s
current Head Groundsman is Daniel Rouse, who has “We needed someone to do the pitches, so myself we would give it a go. We had no prior experience, apart from speaking with our previous groundsman Tim (Turbo) Campbell, who was really helpful and told us what we could expect. He used to work so hard and the ground looked amazing because of it.
He really set the standard for our club.”
internet, spoke to our local ECB County Pitch Advisor and made myself known on the Pitchcare forum.”
Club. I started working on some game days at
Kerrison, has been brilliant to work for and has been very helpful where Wickford is concerned. He about cricket groundsmanship. What immediately amazed me was how spot on everything was. It changed my way of working; made me work smarter and raised my standards.” “I have a ‘Dad’s Army’ helping me with the of the club. Many hands make light work.” “We host the Essex Over 50s and 60s, as well
as district games, so the ground has to look its is looking nice. People want to play here. But it mustn’t come at the expense of performance.” have to cover up the slope to try and avoid water
to a level we are happy with. We tend to cut the we reduce the height of cut down half a millimetre
Protea greensmower Auto roller
Ride-on tractor mower (Forest Gump style)
“We got the Auto-roller last year - it’s the old one from Essex CCC, and it is the best roller out there, by far.”
We used to cut it as low as 3mm, but leaving more grass on helps us with pace and carry. The players as well. More grass is a good thing.” “At the halfway stage of this season we were top of the pitch marks, so we are buzzing.”
twice a week, also to 14mm.
to eight bags of Ongar loam per pitch. We also get always taking core samples, as I need to know what is going on underneath.” As a fairly new arrival to the industry, how is he certainly don’t feel undervalued, either at Wickford or Chelmsford. I am very lucky, and I try not to be the grumpy groundsman...
...I would like to see more groundsmen being interviewed on TV talking about their pitches, rather than the ‘experts’ who have never cut a pitch in their life!
I ”
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