Winter Sports - Football
O
ne hundred and fifty years later, Sheffield Wednesday remain one of the oldest English league football teams, with the current team playing in the EFL
Championship along with its city rivals Sheffield United.
Clearly, this club is fond of its logic‐driven nicknames ‐ they’re not only called ‘The Wednesday’ but also ‘The Owls’ because they play in the city’s suburb of Owlerton. Indeed, the club’s crest has featured an owl for many years, with the latest version being a return to one similar to that first used in 1956.
The club’s Head Groundsman doesn’t take many days off these days, and certainly not midweek! Andy Thompson, 35, is the hard‐ working chap, based at Hillsborough Stadium, the close to 40,000 capacity home of The Owls since 1899.
His tenure is just approaching four years. He took over from Steve Kiddy, having handed in his notice at Doncaster Rovers as Steve handed his to The Wednesday. He’d been working for Rovers since 1998, at Belle Vue initially, then at the Keepmoat Stadium from 2006 until 2014. By nineteen years old, he was already head groundsman. Fresh ideas and new responsibilities needed to come from somewhere, so they looked to a very young man for help, and never reversed the decision.
He had wanted to be a policeman, and even took an eighteen month Public Services course, but helped a friend in collecting leaves at Belle Vue and that stuck instead. That was at 3.00am, even before he was familiar with the fact that many groundspeople start at such times, and he said he was raised to work hard by his father (who looked almost exactly like him).
Andy’s dad was a scrap man, then a rail company worker, and Andy accompanied him on some of this work whilst as young as eight years.
He passed away in early 2015, and Andy clearly holds him in very high regard. Photographs of them together are posted on the wall of Andy’s shed.
Although Andy’s accent doesn’t reveal it, the family is from Bishop Auckland, County Durham, and all are fans of Sunderland AFC. When scheduling the pitch’s consumables and purchasing equipment, Andy said he doesn’t “have a plan written down, i.e. I keep spending on the most important things until they tell me to stop.” “I have some parameters to work between, but I largely go off what was necessary the previous year, by adding 10%, and other than that it’s partly improvised.” “We also have an Operations Manager,
PC FEBRUARY/MARCH 2018 I 47
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68 |
Page 69 |
Page 70 |
Page 71 |
Page 72 |
Page 73 |
Page 74 |
Page 75 |
Page 76 |
Page 77 |
Page 78 |
Page 79 |
Page 80 |
Page 81 |
Page 82 |
Page 83 |
Page 84 |
Page 85 |
Page 86 |
Page 87 |
Page 88 |
Page 89 |
Page 90 |
Page 91 |
Page 92 |
Page 93 |
Page 94 |
Page 95 |
Page 96 |
Page 97 |
Page 98 |
Page 99 |
Page 100 |
Page 101 |
Page 102 |
Page 103 |
Page 104 |
Page 105 |
Page 106 |
Page 107 |
Page 108 |
Page 109 |
Page 110 |
Page 111 |
Page 112 |
Page 113 |
Page 114 |
Page 115 |
Page 116 |
Page 117 |
Page 118 |
Page 119 |
Page 120 |
Page 121 |
Page 122 |
Page 123 |
Page 124 |
Page 125 |
Page 126 |
Page 127 |
Page 128 |
Page 129 |
Page 130 |
Page 131 |
Page 132 |
Page 133 |
Page 134 |
Page 135 |
Page 136 |
Page 137 |
Page 138 |
Page 139 |
Page 140 |
Page 141 |
Page 142 |
Page 143 |
Page 144 |
Page 145 |
Page 146 |
Page 147 |
Page 148 |
Page 149 |
Page 150 |
Page 151 |
Page 152 |
Page 153 |
Page 154 |
Page 155 |
Page 156
