Summer Sports - Cricket “
Getting rid of the big equipment we have to keep in the open behind the pavilion will be better for the park setting
Goodwood is a busy place and sometimes the cricket ground gets intruders. Here, a Spitfire performs a fly past
Pitch plan. A prepared strip, marked and ‘labelled’ for use
big difference to it,” says Richard. Goodwood House has always been very supportive of the club in every way. Alex Williamson, the Estate’s CEO, has assured Richard that changes in infrastructure management will not in any way take away the independence the club has historically had. The Estate will always want people who come to the club to play to have a wholehearted involvement in its well-being and its place in the life of the Estate and its surroundings. “I’m very confident that this will be upheld, whatever happens in the way we look after the ground in future,” said Richard. However much things develop, Richard
expects to continue doing pre-match preparation duties. It’s the renovation aspects only where the Estate's golf facilities
The Estate’s CEO, has assured us that changes in infrastructure
management will not in any way take away the independence the club has historically had
”
The club team. The Chairman/groundsman plays too and is front row, extreme right
76 I PC JUNE/JULY 2015
will lend a hand. Generally speaking, greenkeepers sign off for the day at around 2.00pm, so after that the machines are available for the cricket ground. Richard expects they will be
getting plenty of friendly tuition on their usage. Two areas where the Estate golf clubs
won’t be able to help are rolling and pedestrian mowing. They don’t use a roller and the cricket club needs pitch mowers to be on site. Currently, the club uses an old tarmac roller. It’s ugly but effective, though Richard does want to get a proper one. “Hours of three-way rolling in March with the old road machine, because I had the time, has made quite a difference to bounce this season, and players have commented favourably on this,” said Richard. Paladin and Dennis mowers owned by the
club for some seasons now continue to do the strip trimming. “Getting rid, soon perhaps, of the big equipment we have to keep in the open
behind the pavilion will be better for the park setting. We won’t need a tractor in future and a new roller can be kept under cover, out of sight,” said Richard. An £1100 ECB grant recently enabled the
club to purchase side cover additions to its pitch covers, plus a Waterhog for taking care of excess water on the run-ups and edges of the covered pitch area. Richard maps out which match is on which
strip for the whole season. What you might call key matches are in the middle of the square. Light verticutting and rolling gets carried out in the two weeks before each game, with watering as necessary with hosepipe and timer. In the two or three days prior to a fixture, he’ll cut the strip down to 4mm. It must be a pretty fair surface because, in the previous Sunday match, over 400 runs were scored and thirteen wickets taken. Richard will use each strip five times over a season. The Goodwood Estate hosts a number of
celebrated motoring events and the next one to affect the cricket ground is the Revival
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