In a fascinating interview with The Guardian last week, Julie Harrington, managing director of St George’s Park, the FA's National Training Centre, had an interesting turn of phrase to describe groundsmanship. SInce becoming manager of the facility where England trained ahead of their double victory in this weekend's Euro qualifiers, she has understandably become obsessed with the quality of pitches, particularly with spotting surfaces affected by nematodes. She joked with the paper, "When I’m watching matches at home now on TV I have a look and go, ‘I think they’ve got nematodes …" When the interviewer pressed on which club she was refering to, she replied, "I couldn’t possibly say. The groundsmen, they’re so competitive. It’s like a dark art, groundsmanship." Read the whole interview here.

A mystery treasure hunter has dug around a hundred holes in council football pitches in Rugby reports the Rugby & Lutterworth Observer. A man seen with a metal detector on two separate sites is wanted on suspicion of criminal damage. Both pitches are set to be out of action for a number of weeks as Rugby Borough Council has declared them unsafe. A cricket square was also damaged. John Betts, match secretary of the Rugby District Sunday League told the local paper, "It's sad that someone has ruined people's enjoyment of football just by digging a hole in the ground in the hope of finding a penny."

Head greenkeeper Brain Lawrie is to retire after 50 years at Elie Golf Club, come the end of the year, says Fife Today. Actually he'll only be two months shy of his 51st year at the club when he steps down. Brian joined the club as a 14-year-old boy. He told the the paper,  “If you had a job in your last year of school in those days you were allowed to leave. I had worked here in the summer before, so when they said they were looking for a greenkeeper I jumped at the opportunity. It was either that or joinery but I loved being outside in the fresh air, so greenkeeping came first.”

A 23 old man has been charged with causing tens of thousands of dollars of damage to golf greens in East Aurora, New York state near Buffalo. In a fit of anger he  apparently drove his pickup truck to two separate courses and performed 'donuts' on the greens. The man told the police that he was upset because he had been dumped by his girlfriend. What that had to do with golf greens isn't clear! You can watch a local news video report on the incident here.