EDUCATIONAL ESTABLISHMENTS
Two of these sites, the preparatory school and the additional cricket fields, are separated by an A-road, and Richard describes the view from the bridge that connects them - which overlooks not only several cricket fields, but also the hills to the southwest of Oxford - as “the best in Oxfordshire”.
These pitches have recently held a first-ever minor counties cricket match and, whilst this has only been billed as a one-off arrangement, Richard is hopeful that this relationship with Oxfordshire CCC could potentially continue indefinitely.
Richard had worked for a pitch building company, and spent his days travelling sometimes extreme distances across the UK - as far afield as Orkney and Penzance. “It’s such a small industry, pitch building, that you know everyone and who they work for.”
I’m quite young, which could work in my favour. I’ve also been around so many schools and sports clubs, I have good experience with a mixture of surfaces. And, I think I’m a nice guy
”
His first job after leaving school was manning a go-kart track. This, it’s fair to say, was a job without too many prospects, so he was understandably thrilled when the construction company took him on. “It’s great working here, as well. I briefly worked installing a pitch at a prison one time, with all its security procedures and all the prisoners watching you from the windows. Working somewhere nice is a bit of a blessing.”
He said that, although this was interesting work, it’s now a welcome change to be able to take a longer- term pride in his work, simply by staying around after completion to see its development.
This company was also Oxford- based, and Richard is from the outskirts of thecity originally. He
attended a more modestly decorated state school growing up and enjoys the surroundings of his current workplace.
These include some fantastic gardens interspersed with the disparate lodgings, all maintained by a dedicated gardening team led by long-serving senior gardener Dawn. Shortly into the trip, Richard took me to a remote building by a B-road, which had a small pitch lying beside it: “Coming from a pitch building background, I always like to have a project.”
“The school is starting to play more croquet. They are into competitive matches, and last year’s project was a renovation of this croquet lawn.” “You’ll see Dawn took a lot on here as well. She went for some interesting hedge patterns along the edges. They’re sort of… Gaudi- inspired. She’s very artistic with them. As you can see, there are all sorts of shapes.”
The school is currently replacing much of its machinery. It recently acquired a new set of rollers and a Trimax Pegasus wide area mower. It requires such extra-wide machinery because of the logistics of travelling between sites and managing so much land - cutting down mowing times is necessary to allow for pitch preparations. They have just enough staff to manage the workload (nine, three of which are gardeners), but a lot of Richard’s time is spent travelling for inter-site communication, meetings and planning for events. I asked him why they selected him as the new head of grounds: “I’m quite young, which could work in my favour. I’ve also been around so
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PC August/September 2018
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