RUGBY UNION


In September 2019, Jim Buttar stepped into Twickenham for the first time as the Rugby Football Union’s Head Groundsperson – the man in charge of the iconic Twickenham Stadium. Blair Frguson went to meet him


S


et in south-west London, the world’s largest dedicated rugby venue, with a capacity of 82,000, dominates the skyline and emanates the history of English


rugby. Being in charge of this venue is the pinnacle of a career and, when meeting Jim Buttar pitchside in the view of the distinctive British Racing Green seats, you can tell it’s a role that suits him. At just twenty-two years old he became the head groundsman at Rushden and Diamonds Football Club, before moving to Tottenham Hotspur where he spent three years as deputy and eleven as head groundsman at White Hart Lane, winning Premier League Groundsman of the Year two years in a row. A two-year spell with Pro Pitch as a consultant developed a different skill set to his already impressive repertoire before he was appointed in his current role. With the SGL lighting rigs out and terra- spiking continuing, we venture upstairs to a hospitality box overlooking the illuminated turf and begin with a quick summary of Jim’s four months in the job and what drew him back to venue management from consulting on events like the 2018 and 2019 UEFA Champions League Finals and the FIFA Club World Cup 2019. “It’s been four months, and it feels like four weeks, it’s gone that quick. But I’ve loved it, I’ve loved every minute, it’s been good fun,” Jim began.


“I was really honest in my interview and said I had to consider if this was something I wanted to go back into because I had a period working at a venue for fourteen years and loved every minute of it, it was a really enjoyable experience. But then I’ve had two years of being comfortably out of that sole venue position and pushed out of my comfort zone with so many different challenges that I’ve had to understand and overcome.”


“I had an interesting conversation with a colleague about two years ago, and it was one of those ‘what sort of job would it be, if it came up, would you definitely go for’ questions and this was one of them. I’m very aware within the industry the aura this job has, the venue and working for the RFU. It sits at a level that you think is top of the tree and I felt like that was what I needed to get back into.” “Working at a single venue is different from consultancy and, to a degree, I missed the routine. To be able to tinker with small margins and see the results, change it again, did it work, did it not work. I think you’ll find I’m speaking on behalf of a lot of the guys when I say that’s what we do. Okay, we’re fine tuning all the time, and it’s very rare we’ll sit and say ‘I’m happy now, we’ll just keep doing this all the time, and it’ll always come out good’. That’s not the case, so you’re thinking we’re at eighty percent, but to get the next twenty percent we’ll have to


PC February/March 2020 69


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