School grounds team exceed expectations
As grounds manager at Bloxham School, with around 70 acres of sports fields and open spaces in his charge, Glenn Davies says he and his grounds team need to know that each amenity consumable product they use, as well as every turf maintenance machine and item of sports equipment, will always do ‘what it says on the can’ – consistently year-in, year-out.
Glenn Davies (kneeling) and his Bloxham School grounds team.
“We really don’t have time to gamble with our maintenance routines,” says 54-year-old Glenn who, for the past four years since joining the school, has headed up a groundscare team of four full-timers.
“Despite the fact that this is a private school, with the pupils using the facilities only during term time, our workload is seven-days-a-week all year round. This is to ensure the surfaces are at their very best to not only meet the needs of the pupils but also those of ‘outside’ users such as local teams for football and tennis, for instance, as well as County and local cricket teams. Indeed, in season, the site regularly hosts up to 12 cricket games each week. In addition, the England Ladies lacrosse team also use the facilities.
“That means we have to use and depend on ultra-reliable amenity supplies, and I must say I’ve been using basically the same set of products – from Rigby Taylor – since I started in the business as a 16-year-old apprentice.”
Since serving an apprenticeship at local council level, Glenn’s career has focused on working at local schools, excepting a brief spell at a post in Wales.
With around 40 acres of sports surfaces including four cricket squares, seven rugby pitches and one football pitch (all natural grass), to tend, plus 18 hard/astro surfaces for tennis and hockey/football, as well as a running track, Glenn and his Bloxham team also care for all the associated gardens and grounds including landscaping and fencing.
School schedules mean that the team usually work on the sports surfaces in the mornings during term times, having them ready for use in the afternoons when the grounds team’s attentions switch to the amenity areas.
Their remit also covers the annual renovations of the sports surfaces – “we have the appropriate machinery for this, of course, and I feel that carrying this out in-house really does give us a more ‘rounded’ view of the playing surfaces and what’s needed from them”, Glenn adds.
So, there is no let-up in the team’s workload – hence the need for dependable products which complement his “very enthusiastic and passionate team”. Glenn is convinced that his team’s work ethic is also boosted by a proper training programme, which includes Institute of Groundsmanship courses, to complement their spraying and chainsaw certificates.
“I’ve been using Rigby Taylor products for years because I’m re-assured that they will always work,” he continues. “They are not the cheapest nor the dearest, but for me they are the most cost-effective available. And the local sales representative [David Carvey] doesn’t act like a typical rep; he is more concerned with providing help and advice as well as supplying a product that will do the job, the correct job.”
His annual shopping list with Rigby Taylor – the company at the forefront of supplying innovative products for the successful management and maintenance of turf surfaces – is extensive, he says, with iGO Advance and Glider line marking machines and Impact XP line marking paint, as well as goalposts and netting adding to the grass seed:
- R9 for the cricket squares – R9 is a 100 per cent fine ryegrass and is part of the Rigby Taylor ‘iCON’ programme of ‘low growth’ grass seeds which reduce mowing frequency but offer a host of advanced and unique specialised characteristics for high tolerance to wear, and drought and disease tolerance, for example
- R11 on rugby pitches, some of which are on the cricket outfield – R11 is a 100 per cent perennial ryegrass that gives rapid establishment with all-year-round colour and is particularly disease tolerant.
“The use of R9 and Kettering loam on the squares has complemented our maintenance routines that have considerably improved the playing surface year-on-year, helping us to create wickets with true and even bounce,” says Glenn.
“The County has now recognised this, and I know these improvements have played their part in helping the school team reach the semi-finals of the NatWest Cup. The autumn and spring are the key periods for establishing the quality of the wickets, and we try and start our pre-season rolling (in a Union Jack direction/pattern) as early as possible.”
Glenn’s established maintenance regime also depends as much on regular vertidraining and brushing, plus regular applications of sand –in one case, a rugby pitch had 90 tonnes applied during the annual renovation.
“It’s all about managing expectations,” Glenn concludes. “The expectations of the players and of the school. That said, because of the high usage we often don’t have a lot of time to turn a pitch around, but with the right groundscare skills and appropriate products, I’m pleased to say that everyone concerned says we actually manage to exceed expectations!”