What can one say?! It has been a weekend of sublime sporting achievements.
It started with England reaching the semi-finals of the Euros with an emphatic win over the Ukraine, wining four nil in Rome. Gareth Southgate’s men will now take on Denmark at Wembley on Wednesday with a crowd of 60,000 hoping to cheer them on to further success.
We then saw, the British Lions win their first tour match beating the Sigma Lions 56 / 14, with Welsh winger Josh Adams scoring four tries.
Then to top it all, we saw a new, up and coming British star emerge at her very first Wimbledon Tournament. 18-year-old Emma Raducanu has stunned everybody with her mature performance to beat three very good opponents to reach the fourth round of the Championships.
In all of these achievements, we must not forget the dedication and skills of the turf professionals who are maintaining these stadia environments during these long tournaments. Every day the playing surfaces are maintained to the highest degree, to ensure they provide a safe, consistent and well-presented surface to play on.
It will no doubt be a stressful three weeks for these guys who are on call 24/7 during the events and who need to adapt and work with pressures, including changing weather fronts that confront them during the course of the tournament.
The weather forecast for this week does not look too good, with a lot of rain showers forecast for the next ten days. This will certainly test their resolve during the completion of these two major tournaments on home soil.
Parks update
On the parks front, Green Flag judging is still in progress with over 2000 parks being judged this year. To help celebrate the 25th anniversary of the Green Flag Awards, Green Flag has announced that they are sponsoring the Landscape Institute's Awards 2021. Specifically the 'Landscape and Parks Management' award category. The Landscape Institute Awards are all about celebrating people, place and nature, and the myriad ways that landscape projects can connect them.
I believe the transformative power of landscape is never more important than in times of crisis. Building on the success of the 2020 Landscape Institute Awards, the 2021 awards intend to do more than ever before to celebrate the exceptional contribution of landscape designers, managers, planners, researchers and more across the world.
While still on the subject of parks The Keep Britain Tidy Love Parks campaign will run from the 23rd July until the 1st August 2021.
Love Parks Week’ aims to encourage everyone, young and old, to get out and enjoy their favourite park. Spending time in a park is a great way to embrace nature and improve mental well-being - plus by encouraging the public to use and celebrating their local park, hopefully it will go some way towards protecting them for the future.
It is at this time of the year in July that our parks usually look at their best, with fine displays of formal bedding schemes, wildflower areas and flowering shrubs and trees.
Upcoming shows
We are now less than three weeks away from BIGGA’s Festival Of Turf show. The two-day event is scheduled to take place in the predominantly outdoor setting of the Warwickshire Event Centre on 21 & 22 July.
There will be two full exhibition days with BIGGA promising a wide range of trade stalls and opportunities to meet with vendors, alongside what they describe as “ . .a couple of entertaining twists that bring to life the ‘festival’ element of the event”.
And then the following week (27-29 July) you will have the opportunity to attend The Sports & Grounds Expo (SAGE) outdoor show at the Three Counties Showground Malvern.
I will be interested to discover how they both fair in terms of attendance. July is usually a busy time for groundstaff, dealers and manufacturers, plus it is also the time of year for annual holidays.
