(Left to right) Peter LK Dury; David Dury; Harry Brind – former head groundsman at the Oval; and Bob Carpenter former Notts County Council employee
Dury has been awarded many accolades during his career in groundsmanship
This was a full artificial pitch that was actually laid on sand. Regarding the early forms of synthet-
ic turf, I remember the synthetic brand Astroturf coming to the UK, the first sand-filled product I had seen. Originally this pitch system was always
laid on concrete – although I figured that by putting a mineral surface on the base of the synthetic pitches it would offer better performance. I had also been working with the Eng-
land and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) as a pitch consultant since 1974 and set up the Better Pitches Committee in 1981. During this time I was particularly interested in some of the sports turf research conduct- ed in Holland and Belgium. As the turf industry progressed it was
obvious to me that proper standards for the way pitches performed needed to be in place. When we started in 1981 we only had standards for ball bounce and pace across the surface. We ended with standards for 26 other pitch characteris- tics when I retired in 2008.
What characteristics did synthetic turf offer? Basically in Cricket it provided a slower
Issue 4 2012 © cybertrek 2012
pitch, with more consis- tent performance in the early days when sand and rubber was used as the underlay; great for coaching. We then ex- perimented on performance results using other in-fills and introduced pitch fibres in the sand above the pitch for football and below the pitch for cricket.
How where these systems promoted? Altogether we developed around 22 systems for Nottinghamshire County Council and the council CEO, Arthur Standford, wanted to sell these systems to other local authorities with similar turf needs. During the first four years, the council worked with two existing private companies with varied success; then ap- pointed a single company that was set up for this purpose – Notts Sport – which later purchased the designs and patents from the council. These companies could see the poten-
tial for selling these surfaces across the sports sector. In fact my former deputy county playing fields officer still installs these systems for Nottinghamshire County Council today.
You’ve been awarded many accolades during your groundscare career: an IOG Long Service Award, an Honorary Doctorate for Services to Turf from Essex University, the National Playing Fields Association (NPFA) Presidents Award and most recently an MBE for Services to Groundsmanship – can you offer any tips regarding best practice? Having tried to work using ‘best prac- tice’ for my entire career, culminating in consultancy for ECB, The National Playing Fields Association and Sport England at the National Sports Centres; one thing I learnt early on in my career is that you’ve got to delegate with clear instructions on what standard of performance in task you expect, rather than try to do every- thing yourself. And of course you need to get the best
team possible around you to achieve best results. You get out what you put in – as with all relationships! ●
Read Sports Management online
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