Artificial Surfaces
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I was just travelling around with no emphasis on quality, smashing jobs out as quickly as possible for as little money as possible, then on to the next
required to perfect their consistency in such areas, and to replicate each action exactly across the course. This was all under the supervision of then‐Course Manager Derek Ganning and Head Greenkeeper Bevan Tattersall.
Mark had been working in an office as an insurance clerk, hating every day of it, and had a friend who worked at the club already, who told him that “it’s lovely outside”. With no responsibilities, at just nineteen years old and still living with his parents, he could simply drop the office job and move on. “I’ve never looked back,” he said. He studied an NVQ Level 2 while working there (and eventually went onto Level 3 and gained a foundation degree), before moving to a small golf club local to his home in the suburbs of Birmingham.
“So that was going from a massive entity like The Belfry to a small, local golf club. I saw both sides of the greenkeeping spectrum.”
“I basically left there because I wanted more money. I went to work at the local authority as a supervisor, which was another one I hated. I stuck that for six months.” “I was just travelling around with no emphasis on quality, smashing jobs out as quickly as possible for as little money as possible, then on to the next.”
In 2002, he applied directly from there to the head groundsman post he currently occupies, with his experience in that supervisorial role providing the university with enough evidence of his competence to take him on.
In one sense, it was a step down in responsibility. He had been managing nearly twenty staff members, some of them working at Witton Cemetery, which is Europe’s largest.
I asked him how he found these changes in his responsibilities: “It was fairly easy, to be honest. The grounds element of the university’s hierarchy is quite isolated from some of the other departments in this huge organisation.”
96 I PC DECEMBER/JANUARY 2018
“Our staff account for less than 1% of the overall workforce. When you work on a golf course, you represent more like 90% of the business.”
“What that means is; if you’re not performing on a golf course, the whole thing falls apart. Here, they don’t have to worry as much. When we have problems, they don’t have an immediate impact on the business.” “I’d argue that you’re not under the same immediate pressures in a job like this as you are when you’re out on the course.” “And it took me a while to get my head around that when moving into this subsector. At first, when equipment failed, I’d be shouting “we need to get this replaced”, and it became apparent over time that this wasn’t urgently the case.” In theory, the team are employees of the University of Birmingham Centre for Sport, rather than the university, because departments within such establishments tend to act as subsidiaries.
This means Mark is further detached from his department’s financial management than most groundsmen, because the interaction tends to be between the university and the department.
They try to replace one piece of equipment per year on outright purchase, which gives an indication of their decent funding levels for a six‐man team. Sometimes, larger outlays like tractors can be spread over two years instead. These six men are: Mike; Paul Cooper, Deputy Head Groundsman, 43; another 43‐ year‐old, Jason Shuttleworth; Colin Garrow, only just younger at 42; and almost‐two‐ decade veterans Phil Strong, 65, and Antonio Vargum, who is exactly 50.
Unlike many organisations, anything to do with construction or use of heavier plant machinery is contracted out by an entirely different department, which frees the grounds team up to focus on their core tasks.
They have no loyalties to manufacturers or sales people. Mark enjoys the flexibility and
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