Educational Establishments


The contrasts of tending natural and synthetic surfaces could not be greater than across the acres that the University of Manchester runs for its students and for the community. Greg Rhodes views the scope of provision and the task of managing two venues miles apart


H peripatetic Duty Manager Mike Tomlinson, PC JUNE/JULY 2018 I 65


ost to one of the largest student populations in Europe, the University of Manchester runs a huge sporting programme for both pre‐ and postgraduates. The University of Manchester alone coordinates forty‐two sports clubs and the usual suspects ‐ football, rugby and hockey ‐ figure strongly in demand for provision. A single site could never satisfy the scale of sporting provision and participation, but the scope of delivery needs to be seen to be appreciated.


The fabled Manchester weather descended on the day we visited the sites, but the downpours couldn’t dampen the enthusiasm of the grounds team. We met Duty Manager Mike Tomlinson at The Armitage Sports Centre, Fallowfield, south of the city. After an overview of the provision, he introduced us to Leisure Attendant Scott McLean, who has tended these grounds for some forty years. The University of Manchester’s approach has been to create a workforce under a one‐ team strategy of maintaining the sports facilities across both sites.


Mike’s roving brief sees him splitting his time between the Armitage Sports Centre and the 90‐acre expanse of grass sports pitches at Wythenshawe Sports Ground ‐ some miles out of the city centre, nestling in a nook between the M60 and M56


motorways that stretches along the banks of the River Mersey.


The style of sporting provision has changed somewhat since Scott arrived, I guessed, but I was soon to learn by how much.


As many as 1,000 students can crowd this venue daily for outdoor sport and to use the Armitage Sports Centre’s gym and sports hall, and some of Scott’s task is student facing as he meets and greets home and away teams on Wednesday afternoons. Sheltering from the rain, we’re looking out from the vantage point of the Firs Pavilion, a traditional brick built and ‘Magpie’ timber clubhouse, now more than a century old. “This was the former cricket pavilion,” notes Scott wistfully, “which looked over the square until last year, when the provision moved to another ground. We now have new artificial outdoor nets which were included as part of the sports facilities redevelopment programme in 2017.” The University of Manchester is unique in that it is the only one in the country to have six artificial full size sports pitches side by side on one campus ‐ an impressive vision of sporting provision and evidence enough of the huge demand from both local community and student population. Behind the pavilion stands a characteristically contoured building betraying itself as one housing squash


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