Winter Sports
“ Mark Farragher 100 I PC JUNE/JULY 2017
“When I came in, there were dairy cows
Manchester United’s goalkeeper Romero was in goal. Messi took about a dozen free-kicks; every time the ball nestled into the top corner and Messi would just raise his hand in apology to the hapless Romero
still here. The O’Meara course construction was about six months in; that was 2001. Then, in late 2001, we started The Montgomerie Course. O’Meara opened in 2002, Montgomerie in 2003.” Carton House has developed a history of
hosting some of the biggest names in sports over the last fifteen years, as well as home- grown superstars; the estate has welcomed global superstars like Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo. Mark recalls when Messi was in town with
the Argentinian team a few years back. “There was a gang of kids and their parents just outside the training pitches waiting to see Messi. When he made his way over from the hotel, he was hanging onto the back of a golf cart, it must have been the cart drivers first go at a golf cart because he was zig- zagging up the road to the training pitch. When they reached the pitch, Messi jokingly threw himself off the cart into a tumble landing! It was just surreal to see this icon messing about, it just goes to show though, that they are just human, enjoying the craic; if only Barcelona knew!” joked Mark. “Well, he then walked out onto the
training pitch and started practising free kicks. Manchester United’s goalkeeper Romero was in goal. Messi took about a dozen free-kicks; every time the ball nestled into the top corner and Messi would just raise his hand in apology to the hapless Romero. ‘That’s Messi!’ I thought.” So what about the training facility? These
were built with topsoil and had about 3” of sand integrated into the top of the surface. “We have built up a nice surface layer through topdressing and overseeding four or five times a year. As soon as the Lions leave us, we have 120 tonnes of Wexford sand to put down.” The training area can hold either two full
size football or rugby pitches side by side, or a single Gaelic pitch with the same dimensions as the famous Croke Park pitch.
The area is kept private and secluded by a high fence around the perimeter. It is looking absolutely pristine in the sun. “We put down an ICL Sierrablen Spring Starter 25:4:13, slow release fertiliser a couple of weeks back. Yesterday, we threw down a liquid feed just to gloss it up a little and put down a little iron as well. We are lining out the two rugby pitches this morning, and tomorrow we will cut the pitches at a height of 30mm, box and collect the clippings.” Mark tells me that he prepares a cutting height of 30mm for Gaelic and rugby and a height of 23mm for football. The team are constantly having to change
the pitch type from one sport to another to cater for the hotel’s guests. They had the Wexford GAA football team in last week, the Lions in this week for rugby and they will be going back to GAA next week when they host the Kilkenny Hurling team. Try not to get dizzy, but the following week again, they are going to go back to rugby to host the IRFU as they prepare for their summer tour. “Then, in July, we will have pre-season football. Burnley and Ipswich Town are booked in, so we will have to set up for football again. Switching from rugby to Gaelic is fine, but switching from rugby to football can be a hassle because the rugby posts have to come down and that is a day’s work for two lads. We stay on top of things through careful planning and have a monthly planner system in place. If a team books in, it goes into the hotel’s planner system. After that, we get flagged on our system and we make sure we are well prepared for any shifts in type of pitch we will need to have ready.” Mark, Joe and the rest of the team have to
constantly re-mark pitches to suit the sport that their guests are affiliated to, so how do they cope? The dimensions of the pitches are marked at every corner with a Plifix markers; these are carrot shaped markers with artificial grass tuft heads. They come in a variety of different colours, but you can barely see them in the grass. They mark out the corners of the GAA pitch with yellow
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