Educational Establishments
Cricket being played in front of the historic buildings at Cumberland Street “ Steve Moores 102 I PC DECEMBER/JANUARY 2018
heeding the call of his ‘alma mater’ to return as assistant groundsman.
My role had changed significantly, as well as having three children by then, so everything worked better by creating a deputy’s position, which Alex slotted into
“I was a batsman and spin bowler and would loved to have been a better sportsman. Local cricket was my level ‐ hockey too ‐ while my brother Pete moved on up to captain Sussex before going on to coach.”
“Once you start working on the grounds though, you never want to do anything else,” recalls Steve of his first days here. When the then head groundsman, David Taylor moved away in 1990, Steve applied for the vacancy and he has developed the role ever since to now embrace a fair degree of financial control of sports planning and development, not forgetting his role as head of cricket and hockey.
Cricketing is in the Moores genes (his brother Peter rose to become England head coach and is now in that position at Nottinghamshire), and there is plenty to get his teeth into at King’s.
The home of the school’s first team cricket is on a lush expanse of sportsturf, overlooked by the Cumberland Street main entrance and buildings, occupied since 1850. It’s no surprise then to learn of his interest in progressing cricket and hockey provision, including practice facilities. “We’ve rectified the nets’ surfaces,” he says, “replacing concrete bases with engineered ones incorporating shockpads, which deliver consistency and bounce as well as good drainage.”
“I also wanted to install floodlighting because we could increase income from hiring out, so prepared a business case for the school.”
His responsibilities now embrace school fixtures programming and community bookings for the synthetic pitches, covering fixtures, practice sessions and junior activities.
King’s caters for the three to eighteen age groups. Founded as a boys’ school in Tudor times, it took over the former Macclesfield High School in the 1980s to open a Girls’
Division and an infants and junior school. Infants and juniors are fully co‐educational, with the boys and girls divisions (11 to16‐ year‐old) based at the Fence Avenue and Cumberland Street locations respectively, and sixth formers at the latter site. King’s delivers the full spread of sports you’d expect from a leading independent school ‐ cricket, hockey, rugby, netball, tennis, athletics and rounders, but no football beyond eleven‐year‐olds. Grounds on the scale of those King’s provides ‐ more than sixty acres across three sites ‐ Cumberland Street, Derby Fields and Fence Avenue ‐ are a challenge to maintain and Steve picks and chooses which elements he contracts out.
Aside from the scale of sporting provision, King’s commands significant hectarage of woodland, hedging, gardens and mature trees.
Coping with the demands on three sports foci must be tough. “Everything has evolved and developed over time,” says Steve reassuringly. “We know who wants what in terms of provision and can plan that in, accommodating last‐minute requests if at all possible. Ease of communication today makes that process easier.” Sports compete for bragging rights of course, adds Steve, who has a fine balancing act to achieve to keep everyone happy.
From his own perspective, “cricket is more labour‐intensive, but preparing wickets is more satisfying, I find. The first‐team outfield is looking particularly good”, he states proudly as we walk along the perimeter of the campus.
Under the organising skills of deputy head groundsman Alex Bailey, each of the King’s team has key tasks across the estate. A landscape gardener until the early 1990s, Alex, 53, was interviewed for the position of assistant groundsman ‐ tackling flower beds and shrubbery before deepening his impact on the school’s turfcare programme.
“We didn’t have a deputy post at the
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