Summer Sports - Cricket GETTING Personal...
Gareth Shaw ‐ honest, empathic, generous, politician!
Who are you? Gareth Shaw, Head Groundsman at Ealing Cricket Club.
Family status? I’m married, with a daughter who is just about to turn three.
Who’s your hero and why? Viv Richards, because of that arrogant swagger when he walked to the crease.
What would you change about yourself? I need to lose some weight.
What’s your guilty pleasure? I drink a bit too much.
What’s been the highlight of your grounds career so far? When Ealing CC won the Evening Standard Cup, which garnered a £10,000 prize.
What’s been the highlight of your political career so far? Just recently, Ealing Council are taking on a stance against people protesting outside abortion clinics. It causes great distress and trouble to the patients. These are people just trying to access healthcare to which they are entitled.
What are your pet peeves? Rain on Fridays and Saturdays.
If you could go anywhere right now, where would it be? I’d go to Australia to watch The Ashes.
What’s the best part of your job? It’s the range of people that we meet. There’s such a broad spectrum represented on matchdays here.
… and the worst? Pre‐season rolling at the end of February.
Do you have a lifetime ambition? To make sure my daughter is a happy, successful adult.
Favourite record, and why? Hotel California by The Eagles.
Who would you choose to spend a romantic evening with? My wife, although she doubts I’m capable of romance.
If you won the lottery, what is the first thing you would do? I would buy my own house in London.
What's the best advice you have ever been given? Get a good night’s sleep.
94 I PC FEBRUARY/MARCH 2018
Which three people, living or dead, would you invite to a dinner party? Revolutionary Oliver Cromwell, civil rights campaigner Martin Luther King Jr. and flight pioneer Amy Johnson.
If you could be anyone for a day, who would it be and why? The Chinese leader, because it would be such a different state of politics and leadership. And they are the emerging force in the world. It’s being done in a completely different fashion.
Do you have any bad habits? I bite my nails.
... or any good ones? I drink a lot of water.
Do you go to bed worrying about the next day’s workload? At times ‐ when the cover and sheets are on, and rain’s forecast.
What are you reading? ‘Who Goes Home?’ by Roy Hattersley.
What’s your favourite smell? Bacon.
What do you do in your spare time? The politics stuff is my spare time really.
What’s the daftest work- related question you have ever been asked? A guy was watching me set the stump holes in the pitch. He kicked his shoes and socks off and asked, “Do you mind if I drag my feet along the pitch to get the feel of it?”. He did it.
What three words would you use to describe yourself? Honest, empathic, generous.
What talent would you like to have? I’d love to be decent at cricket. In my fantasy, I’m batting my way to a hundred.
What law/legislation would you like to see introduced? Limiting batsmen and wicketkeeper’s markings. They’re bored, but some of the damage is irreparable.
weather which causes those conditions.”
“And secondly, this square has now hosted cricket for over 100 years, and it has never been relaid. That presents its own challenges; we keep talking about relaying it.”
“We’ve drawn up several planning options for achieving that. Most of these have been put together with the help of advisors, who have tried to help us find clever ways to reduce the cost.”
“Usually, you’ll find there’s an obvious way to do a job, which costs a lot, and a cleverer way, which achieves a similar effect for far less.”
“So, the committee and the financiers have agreed to do it, in principle. It’s just a case of choosing one of those price plans, and that fitting in with other plans for that year.”
Another issue the pitch has had traditionally is its combination of a severe slope and its London clay base. Combined, these lead to water gathering at the southern end of the outfield.
The club is based on Hanger Hill, which refers not to the feeling of being ‘so hungry that you’re angry’, or even a history of lethal punishment.
Rather, it is derived from the Old English word ‘hangra’, meaning ‘wooded slope’. And it is a real slope ‐ the southern edge of Ealing’s ground is around 4’6” lower than its opposite. Ollie said: “You don’t notice it from here, really. But it is quite dramatic when you’re playing out there, or when you’re stood in the water at the bottom!” And Gareth noted: “Look up at the top of the pitch. Do you see those sight screens? They look a bit taller than regular ones, because they are. We had to
have them specially built to compensate for the lie of the land.”
“Next to that, you’ll see the nets, of which there are five. We spent a long time filling that in with rubber crumb, but have phased that out due to the ongoing controversy surrounding its safety.”
“They don’t need to worry about that water that drains away. Thankfully, though the bottom end does, we have drainage in place just in that area.”
“There are about five or six of the herringbone patterns down there. We hosted British Universities cricket a few years ago, and it was a wash‐out.” “After that, we had some trenching work done, just some narrow lips in which we put Lytag banding, to join up with the existing drainage. It does still sit wet out there, but we haven’t had that problem since, even during the heavy rain at the end of 2015.”
“We consider ourselves, though, quite lucky, because of the topography of the area. What tends to happen is that we can see the weather fronts approaching from behind the pavilion.”
Ollie added: “Then, people who aren’t experienced with the way the weather works here will say, ‘looks like we should head inside so we don’t get soaked’. And we are thinking, ‘well… don’t be so sure’”.
Gareth continued: “Because we’re in a dip, the clouds tend to split just as they approach us, head off to both the north and south, then rejoin when they meet again over to the east. It’s quite bizarre, but we miss a lot of the rain for that reason.” “Quite often, we’ll bet each
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