Sport & Fitness

‘I’ve worked here since 1969. I started as a junior and worked up the ladder. We always promote in-house because unless you know the quirks, like the slope of the pitch and the sheer number of matches that take place here compared to at other grounds – it would be shock, horror! Every year Lord’s hosts two Tests, one-day internationals, club finals, domestic finals, village finals. There are six full-time members on the groundstaff, plus a guy from Australia who works here for six months. From April to the first week of October we work seven days a week and ten-, 11-, 12-hour days. I had the odd afternoon off to watch the World Cup, but that’s it.

‘The job changes all the time and not necessarily for the better. The pressure’s increased and there’s greater expectation both from players and the public. My main priority is preparing the square – that’s the area where you put the stumps. The grass is mown three times a week in summer. Our mowers have rollers that flatten the grass, giving it the classic light/dark effect. The grass might look nice and green at the moment but I’ve purposely starved it to get the roots to go down – if we get a hosepipe ban I want the root structure there. I’ve got a computerised irrigation system, it’s quite sophisticated. I know it sounds ridiculous but we’ve probably used less water this year than in the last four or five. Feature continues

‘After each match, the umpire marks the pitch on a scale of one to six – very good, good, average, below average, poor and unfit – and we’re always in the top category, so we’re doing our bit. I don’t get to watch much cricket because when there’s a match on we usually blitz the nursery (training) ground. This week will be the first time we’ve had a women’s match in about five years.

‘I’m wearing my favourite shorts today, but on match days we have to wear a uniform: a green top, white sweatshirt and shorts. It’s a dress down day today, of course! We don’t do much to the pitch during the match, we just tidy and sweep it. At lunch and tea intervals the public are allowed to walk on the pitch. They call it perambulating! There can be a few thousand people out there, but what’s really funny is that they treat it like a skating rink and all walk around in a circle! Some people pretend to play cricket and start diving about, which is all fun I suppose, but the next day we go along with our mower and whack, hit a key or a coin and it costs us £300 or £400 to get the machine fixed.

‘Seemingly in certain countries the groundsman helps the home nation a bit but you have to careful because how can you differentiate being helpful from cheating? You always want to see the national side win, but you don’t want a five-day test match to finish in three days because the home side has won. The media like drama, they like football to go to a penalty shoot-out, golf go to the eighteenth green, snooker to go to the last frame. But you can’t contrive an exciting final with a surface.

‘We see a lot of wildlife here: kestrels and sparrowhawks, plus the odd racing pigeon. We found a peacock strutting about here a few years ago – I’ve no idea where it came from! We also have a lot of foxes. They’ve become a real nuisance. One morning I was out in the nursery ground and the smell was dreadful. I don’t think there’s a stadium in this country that hasn’t got a problem with foxes. We trap them in a cage in the winter months – we can’t do it in summer because there are people on the grounds – and they get released in a wood down in Sussex. Over the past the past two winters we must have caught in the region of fifty foxes per winter.

‘I enjoy my job. But years ago on Test match mornings I’d be throwing up, sick with worry. I know a couple of ex-professional cricketers who’ve become groundsmen and say the job’s ten times more stressful than playing cricket because of the expectations. A day or two before a Test match, staff will be laying out tables in every one of the boxes; there are beer lorries coming in, there are caterers, advertisers. There are millions of pounds involved and if I get it wrong… phew. That’s what I was saying earlier, if you want to do this cheating business it could all go horribly wrong. We’ve had occasions where the pitch has been superb but team A has been far superior than team B and it has been one sided, but it still doesn’t stop people saying “What’s wrong with the pitch”.

‘But, being truthful, before a Test match when the ground just looks superb, of course you get a buzz. I get a buzz in September when it’s all over as well!’

The NatWest Women’s Series: England v India is on Monday August 14 at Lord’s. Adm free. See www.lords.org for full details.