EDUCATIONAL ESTABLISHMENTS
You can’t just go to the job centre and pick one out, so we decided to hire in one for twenty hours a week, starting last year
” Stephen Brown, longest serving member of the team
safety threshold is 400 points a day, but the university has erred very much on the side of caution and imposed a limit of 100 points,” Paul says.
The protective measures have introduced a welcome control to prevent risk of overexposure to potentially harmful whole body vibration. “We fill in forms to record weekly equipment use,” Paul explains, “then submit these to the estates department.” However, the safety code has impacted the team in another way. “The limit is low enough to bar us from some machinery after only half an hour’s use,” Paul adds. “The old Ransomes Mastiff and Dennis machines we were using all day have been replaced with newer machinery and we have discussed battery-operated kit with the HSE. The team completes the basic maintenance, with external contractors coming in as and when we need help.” Cold weather rarely interrupts fixtures these days. “We use vacuum dried salt from a local dealer and applied from a fertiliser spreader at notch 4, but we last had cause to use it three or four years ago, usually when a big game’s on.”
“The temptation with the 3Gs is to run the tractor and snow plough over the surface if necessary, but this can damage the pitch and takes off so much rubber crumb.” “One winter, several years ago, we cleared snow this way as we were under pressure to ensure the match went ahead. We lost a host of fixtures that year but nothing recently, except a couple of days when ‘The Beast from the East’ bit us. That said; December and January can cause problems before the sun has any power in it.”
The cricket season starts the third week in April and there’s play almost every day until the third week in June, when summer term finishes. “Finding time to prepare wickets is the challenge,” says Paul.
“The sun is your best friend at this time of year and I have to think ahead and prepare wickets early in May - exam season. After that, we can be staging up to three
98 PC December/January 2020 Looking across the pitches to the shed
Twenty20 games a day, starting at 10.00am, then 1.00pm and 4.00pm.” “Two weeks before a fixture, we designate a wicket - water, roll and scarify it then cut with a Dennis, fitted with the appropriate cassette, preparing a little bit each day, all the time praying for decent weather.” The artificial strip also comes into play, staging the inter-college Twenty20 match.” Paul’s original team of three assistants shrunk after one of the groundsmen took voluntary severance two years ago, leaving him short of a cricket specialist. “You can’t just go to the job centre and pick one out,” he says resignedly, “so we decided to hire in one for twenty hours a week, starting last year.” Beckenham-based self-employed specialist Andy Pierson was selected. “My priority was to be able to let him crack on with the job and he performed brilliantly.”
But good peripatetic cricket groundsmen are in high demand. Andy also works on North East Premier League Division 1 club
Sacriston Colliery Cricket Club and Philadelphia Cricket Club, near Washington. “I wanted to bring him in again this year but he was unavailable,” bemoans Paul.
‘Extracurricular’ duties
The university is a community of sixteen colleges and most of them have some form of sports provision, but none on the scale or scope of Maiden Castle. Collingwood College, for example, boasts cricket nets - “for their use only” - and extensive botanic gardens. “A bequest from alumni. One even runs a mini golf course,” Paul notes. “The grounds team used to maintain them, particularly the tennis facilities,” Paul recalls. “Durham Archery Club was one of the earliest tennis clubs in Britain,” which sounds counter-intuitive until you research back to the mid-1800s, when the two sports often sat side by side.”
“The grounds and gardens department have a huge task. They’re a different section - we come under sports. There’s just not enough time in the day for a single
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