GOLF
Getting Personal
Colin Fairley - The Flying Scotsman
Who are you? Colin Fairley - Course Manager at Scarborough North Cliff Golf Club.
Family status. Married.
Who’s your hero and why? My mother, because she stuck by me no matter what.
What’s been the highlight of your grounds career so far? Working in the Netherlands.
If your younger self saw you now, what would they think? WHY are you doing this?
Which famous people wind you up? Jeremy Corbyn.
What job would you love, other than your own? A pilot.
What was the most embarrassing moment in your life? There’s been too many!
Brexit or Remain? Brexit. What is your favourite film? Gladiator. What scares you? Deep water.
What would your autobiography be called… and who would play you in the film? The Flying Scotsman played by Liam Neeson.
What is your favourite sport? Rallying.
What would you cast into Room 101? Cricket and Elvis Presley.
Which three people, living or dead, would you invite to a dinner party? Churchill, Liz Hurley and Boris Johnson.
What’s the best advice you have ever been given? Do the best you can.
What’s your favourite smell? A good curry.
Which three albums would you take to a desert island? None - I would want total silence.
What’s the daftest work-related question you have ever been asked? If we had more money could we achieve more?
What three words would you use to describe yourself? Grumpy, impatient and loyal.
What is the single most useful thing you could tell a 16-year-old groundsperson/greenkeeper? Believe in yourself and hang on in there - it always comes to he who waits.
What talent would you like to have? To play the piano.
38 PC February/March 2020 Clubhouse
respect; the money was there, and it was at a time when golf was booming in the ‘90s. The budget was very comfortable.” “Northwood, again, was a club that owned the land, was financially very stable and was able to provide a comfortable budget. Coming here was a bit of shock to the system. The budget was half of what I had at Northwood … and it’s never really changed in eighteen years! So, as you can imagine, it has been difficult; it’s been a matter of tightening things up. In particular, it has been a struggle in the last ten years with the austerity cuts, because money has been even tighter, and prices have skyrocketed. Going back several years to when I first came here, you could get a reasonable bag of fertiliser for eight to ten pounds a bag. The cost has doubled and even trebled in some instances. Red diesel fuel was 0.38p a litre. It’s now around 0.90p. You try and explain this and, for the most part, whilst they understand, there simply isn’t the money. All these factors inevitably have a bearing on our budget, so we have to say we can only do X, Y and
not Z. Beneficial to the club, however, is that I’m very much hands-on. All of the construction work is done in-house, thereby reducing the costs so we can undertake projects we may otherwise not be able to afford to carry out.” Colin’s experiences over his forty-five years have enabled him to further stretch out his budgets by doing nearly all his machinery repairs in house. “Whilst I was an apprentice greenkeeper, I also worked part-time at a local garage, as I wanted to keep my options open of going into engineering. Working on cars and pulling engines apart has always been a bit of a hobby of mine. For a short period, I served in the territorial army, where I pursued my interest in mechanics further through training with the mechanical engineers. I had to give that up when I moved to Holland, but the experience helped me to carry out most of the machinery repairs, with only the cylinder grinding being outsourced. We utilise a local mobile grinding company to come in as and when required, thereby saving the club money. In Holland, it was the opposite. I was
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