Winter Sports - Rugby


Under relatively new ownership, it is all change at the Kingsholm Stadium, home of Gloucester Rugby. As well as a new corporate identity - including a new crest - the playing surface has been upgraded too, with a new Motz Hero hybrid surface being laid, through which the grass grows. Head Groundsman Dave Balmer talked to Pitchcare about this latest innovation in playing surfaces


T


he Kingsholm’s David Balmer, 60, has been stadium manager for twenty‐two years, having started on 1st February 1996, just as rugby union finally decided it


wasn’t a sin to pay players.


I asked him whether he would have joined an amateur club at the time: “When they started officially paying the players in September of 1996, they’d already been paying some anyway. We took on some full‐time coaches and a manager. It was a full unit revamp.”


“I think I was always going to be involved in the grounds somewhere, because my brother [Graeme] was getting involved at a similar time and my dad had been head of grounds at the King’s School.”


We described the ‘Balmer Dynasty’ in a


2006 feature article, and the family situation has changed little since. What has changed includes the profile of the still‐young professional sport, as well as the Kingsholm’s pitch construction. “My brother left that same school in 2010. He has advised me, my part‐time colleague Mack, and my apprentice Jerome, ever since.”


“He has his own business, from which we use the verti‐drain, topdresser and seeder. He’s an ECB Pitch Advisor and looks after the Three Counties Showground at Malvern.”


Just as I had arrived, Dave had taken a delivery from the Pitchcare team. Dave said: “I use Pitchcare quite a bit, because it’s a simple transaction, the delivery service is good and their rep here, Mark Allen, is helpful too.”


PC JUNE/JULY 2018 I 83


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