MULTI-SPORTS


Ford Sports & Social Club


Building the perfect beast


Ford Sport and Social Club run two sites in Essex - at Basildon and Ilford. Blair Ferguson went to meet Dan James, the Head Groundsman at Ilford, to discover how he has been coping with just one additional staff member on such a large site, and how his ‘Frankenstein’ skills are being put to good use!


M


any skills make a good groundsman, and one that is common among the best in the industry is pride. Having that desire to make a


positive difference every day you turn up to work is as crucial as the machines you use and the budget you wield. Across the United Kingdom, Ireland and Europe there will be countless examples of those who are thinking outside the box and working extra hours so, at the end of the day, they can feel pride in their work. In Ilford east London, Dan James, Head Groundsman at Ford Sport and Social Club, is a prime example. For thirty-five years his dad worked on the pitches, bowling green and cricket squares he now maintains and, from the age of four, he and his brother spent numerous weekends at the sports club with his dad Mark, before finally being drawn in.


When he was halfway through sixth form, one of the groundsmen left and he took up the role part-time before leaving education to pursue it on a full-time basis and is now into his thirteenth year. At the time, there were six groundsmen across the two sites and now there is only Dan and Dave Wilks at Ilford and Terry and Dave McCoy at Basildon.


The club was originally set up by the Ford Motor Company as a place for their staff to play sport and socialise, but is now open to the public through associate memberships. To provide quality surfaces for the five Saturday, eight Sunday football teams, East London & Essex Junior Football League,


floodlit midweek league and cater for the six cricket games per weekend in season and a bowls team takes a lot of work. Dan relishes the challenge, but the pride he now has in his work hasn’t always been there. He explains: “It’s weird to think back to the first few years I worked here. The passion I have now wasn’t really there. Now everything is so important to me, it’s hard to think back to a time when it wasn’t.” “My dad and Terry used to look after the bowling green, then Terry got moved down to Basildon and, unfortunately, my dad injured his back, so the bowling green was kind of left to me with my dad’s guidance. That was when I really got a taste for it. Once I started getting positive reviews, I found that pride in my work.” “The bowls team have county competitions, whoever gets into the knockout rounds votes for what neutral green they want to play on. We got the quarter-finals one year, and then the quarters and the semi-finals, so we had that two years in a row, but now we’ve lost it again because the bank on the edge of the green is sloping in places. It’s a lot of hours and manpower to do which we don’t really have because it’s only myself and Dave and obviously it’s a massive site.” The bowling green is what sparked Dan’s interest and where the majority of his learning took place. Whilst he explains the process he went through, and the varied approach he took, you start to grasp that he is forward-thinking and isn’t afraid to do things differently in an attempt to make them better.


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PC April/May 2020


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