Following the recent third Test at Lord’s between England and India, I read an interesting article in The Telegraph that saw one of their sports journalists, Will MacPherson, spend a day working with Karl McDermott and his staff on a match day.

Karl McDermott at Lord's 

Will wrote, “It is approaching 7pm on Friday, the second day of a tense third Test, and India’s coaches, led by Gautam Gambhir, are inspecting the Lord’s pitch. It is perhaps the most scrutinised 22 yards of turf in the whole world.

“Just a couple of yards away, I am on all fours, laying, patting and bashing soil to level the footholds on the popping crease.

"I am into the 13th hour of my first – and only – day working as part of the Lord’s ground staff. It has been a long and hot day, but a thrilling and fascinating one, too”.  

I recommend you read the whole excellent piece, here

Day 4 of the India Test at Lord's 

The article has been well received by many of my fellow turf professionals who, like me, think it’s about time the wider public realised the necessary skills, knowledge, commitment and dedication it takes to prepare major sporting natural grass playing surfaces.

Some praise that the article attracted, which is heartening to read, included

• "This is a brilliant article. Most people, especially umpires, who play and watch cricket don’t have a clue about what is involved in pitch preparation."
• "Probably the most illuminating article I’ve read in the Telegraph this year! Well done - and a great idea!"
• "Meg and Emma are two of just three female ground staff in England, and McDermott is keen to impress that this is “not just an industry for blokes”.
• "A lot of hard graft. You need to be fit."

Twickenham Stadium 

It would be a great scoop if we could as an industry, invite more top sports journalists and national broadcasters to spend time with the grounds staff of major sporting venues – who could then write, interview or produce video content of their working experience. At the same time this could bring to attention the many challenges we face as an industry in terms of being recognised and respected. It could help everyone understand the value of the work we do to manage and maintain these major facilities.

Maybe this programme could then be rolled out to other areas of our industry, to shine a light on the work that goes into managing and maintaining many of our historic gardens, estates and national trust properties, for example.

This national coverage would help raise the profile of our industry and hopefully encourage a new generation to come and work in our diverse landscape and sports turf industry.

This opportunity would vastly improve awareness of what we do. The very fact that a wider audience can see via national media what’s involved behind the scenes would inevitably raise the awareness of our industry.

Neil Stubley at Wimbledon 

We must also applaud the work of Neil Stubley and his team for providing some excellent playing surfaces at the recent Wimbledon Championships - which saw some scintillating tennis.

As with Lord’s, the preparation, maintenance and renovations of the tennis courts is mind blowing in terms of the amount of work involved to produce the consistent playing surfaces on all 41 tennis courts at SW19.

I would like to applaud Will’s Lord's article, I hope he will follow up with some further insights into our great sports turf industry.