Summer Sports - Bowls
Montgomery is a town in the Welsh Marches, administratively in the Welsh county of Powys. It is the traditional county town of the historic county of Montgomeryshire, to which it gives its name. The town centre lies one mile from the English border, as does Montgomery Bowls Club, which is bounded on two sides by the town’s historic stone wall
M
ichael Beloe, 70, looks after the green at Montgomery Bowling Club, right on the Welsh‐English border. His background isn’t in turfcare;
rather, he was a teacher ‐ but he knows his stuff. In his own words, the following outlines his work on this small and historic green.
“Our surface is 31.2 by exactly 30 metres, so it’s under 1000m2
. A competition green would be around 1500‐1600m2 . But it’s been
here since 1773, so we really can’t make it any bigger.
That’s the town wall there on the left [he pointed to the eastern edge of the pitch, then to the south, then the west]. That’s somebody’s garden, and that’s the road. So, we’re locked in. At least, that used to be the town wall. It’s now a protected site, so we can’t go into it anyway.
I came here in 2006, as a bowler. I used to manage another bowling green not too far away, and had already completed my Level 1 greenkeeping course in Port Talbot, so was set up to take over the green as well as play on it.
Before that, however, I had no experience of turf maintenance. I hadn’t played bowls before either. The first time I played bowls was twelve years ago in 2005.
Now, I play for the county veteran’s side, “
for which we travel Wales a lot. That gives us the chance to view many greens, some of which are quite challenging. And I was driven to build the surfaces by wanting to play on good surfaces myself.
When a bowler visits a club like the Welsh Centre of Excellence base at Llandrindod Wells, their bowls do exactly what they say they’re going to on the packet.
When they visit a site that isn’t cared for, they find it hard to adjust to the woods not doing what they’re told, or at least I do. So, I always want to make the best surface I can for the money. At my previous club, they had quite a bit of kit by the standard of these places, but nobody to use it. So, I took over and, over the two years I was working there, it improved dramatically, mainly because I went on that course to learn what to do with it all.
When I got here, they were maintaining the surface in the most traditional way; just cutting it once or twice a week, but then leaving it uncut all winter. So, it became very long ‐ perhaps up to 30/40mm. Then, they’d come back in the spring to cut it, and wonder why it went into shock and turned yellow; why it was so poor. And it was a rough, poor surface when I came to play on it.
The first thing I did was bought them a Dennis mower with all the attachments. That was a £7,500 gift from my own money. They didn’t have a spiker either, so I bought one of them too.
I’ve invested about £10,000 into this out of my own pocket, because you can’t have a proper green without a mower and other basic equipment.
One reason for that input is: it’s pointless playing on a surface if it isn’t a good one. I get annoyed when we travel to bowling clubs where they don’t produce a decent surface on which to bowl.
Like any sport, if the surface isn’t good, no matter how good you are, you can’t play the game you’re there to play.
That’s why I’d always take a surface that plays well over one that looks nice. The reason I bought the Dennis is it has a verti‐ cutter, for which you can take the cassettes out and replace them. That, the ability to
The first thing I did was bought them a Dennis mower with all the attachments. That was a £7,500 gift from my own money. They didn’t have a spiker either, so I bought one of them too
PC DECEMBER/JANUARY 2018 I 73
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