The challenge faced by Baldwin in Hong Kong (above); At work at the Kowloon Cricket Club, Spurs’ training venue during the Barclays Asia Trophy (above right)
head groundsman. At the time he was the youngest head groundsman in the history of the English Premier League at the age of 24. In the summer of 2000, he was
promoted to the newly formed grounds manager position, with overall responsibility for the club’s White Hart Lane stadium and the extensive Spurs Lodge training facilities at Chigwell on the outskirts of London. Nowadays he oversees most of the work and misses hands-on groundsmanship. “If the staff see me out mowing, then they know that’s my way of calming down if we’re under pressure,” he says.
TRAINING DAYS According to Baldwin, his biggest project to date was overseeing the construction of the club’s new £45m training facility on 77 acres of ‘Green Belt’ land at Bulls Cross in Enfield. The project had been 10 years in the planning and one Baldwin has been totally involved with from the start. The training centre is one of the most ambitious projects in the club’s 131-year history with the grounds featuring a mixture of sand based, Desso and Fibresand pitches for the first, development and academy squads.
Issue 4 2013 © cybertrek 2013
It takes a large team to manage the
45 acres of maintained turf; Baldwin has 23 staff working permanently on site, including a mechanic, irrigation engineer, secretary, head groundsman, and head gardener. He remains committed to the industry with his continuous involvement with various bodies including the Premier League Grounds Managers group and the Professional Playing Surface Committee.
AWARD WINNER Still relatively young at 41 years old, Darren can lay claim to many accolades throughout his career. He was voted Premier League Groundsman of the Year 2007, the Institute of Groundsmanship
(IOG) Groundsman of the Year 2007 and in 2010 won the IOG’s Sportsgrounds Management Team of the Year. He and his team won the same award for the second time in 2012. This year, Darren won the IOG’s prestigious accolade of Campey/Imants Professional Football Groundsman of the Year at the IOG’s Industry Awards ceremony, which was held at the Ricoh Arena on 5 December (read more on the awards pn p.62). Commenting on the award, IOG CEO
Geoff Webb said: “Darren is a fantastic ambassador for groundsmanship. He’s always helping others with their turf management issues and the work he’s overseen at Tottenham’s training ground is second to none.”
Read Sports Management online
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