EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW


Steve Pask and his team repairing the Lord’s outfield after Olympic archery


bit of cricket too, without the pressure. One thing that will be occupying the Hunt household soon is swapping their very local St John’s Wood home for a new address, leafy Hertfordshire maybe. “It will be a bit of a wrench, but it’s tied accommodation that goes with the job. It will be strange not living ‘over the shop’ any more. When our children were at school nobody believed them when they said they lived at Lord’s cricket ground.”


Mick took over from his predecessor Jim Fairbrother in 1985, and has been head groundsman ever since. What does he recall about those first days of knowing that Lord’s was in his care, his responsibility? “There was no actual first day ‘in charge in the middle’ for me. Jim had been ill, terminally so, for a while and it was a gradual changeover. As his assistant, I can remember when he was pretty unwell collecting him from his Lord’s cottage in a


tractor and trailer. He’d sit in the back, still very much directing things. In a sense, the transition was quite easy and I suppose it lasted for about six months or so until Jim became too ill to carry on.” And his daily routine since then? “I take the dog out in the morning about 5.00am, sometimes as late as 5.30. When we get back, it’s a cup of tea for me and, for Bailey - a Husky, it’s a digestive biscuit, and for him an M&S one is always his


PC October/November 2018


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