FOOTBALL


Real Valladolid C.F.


Continuing to grow


Since 2018, La Liga side Real Valladolid C.F. has gone through an extensive period of remodelling. It is here that Grounds Manager Antonio Blanco Garcia Del Pino looks after the pitches and, in this article, he talks about construction, maintenance and tending turf 200km north of Madrid


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y name is Antonio Blanco Garcia Del Pino, and I have been circling the Iberian peninsula and Europe for twenty years, originally


coming from Avila in Spain.


Despite the absence of any natural grass sports facility in the area I grew up in, I always had a particular interest in growing turf, probably due to multiple attempts to produce a decent lawn in the family home’s garden, with no success. That is how I started reading books on the subject. I studied Agricultural Technical


PC April/May 2021


Engineering at the University of Salamanca and had my first contact with the world of greenkeeping at the Palomarejos Golf Course in Talavera de la Reina. Subsequently, I studied for my postgraduate degree in golf and football course maintenance management at the EADE University, in Malaga (2011-2012). During this time, I had the privilege of working, for about a year, at the Real Club Valderrama located in the resort of Sotogrande, San Roque, hosts of the 1997 Ryder Cup and regarded as being one of the best courses in continental Europe, if not the world. The golf


course stands out for its attention to detail and high levels of maintenance. It also boasts its own large greenkeeping laboratory and is a significant promoter of the profession and greenkeeper training in Spain. There I laid the foundations for my learning, mainly in terms of professionalism and perception of quality. I then worked as a seasonal greenkeeper


in Las Colinas Golf & Country Club in Alicante, followed by Koksijde Golf ter Hille in Flanders, Belgium and, after that, Kolner Golf Club in Cologne, Germany. In 2016, for an initial three weeks, I took up the


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