Wembley Stadium Turf Scholarship winner, James Pope, has landed his first job since leaving the stadium – with his favourite team, Tottenham Hotspur.

The 19-year-old Spurs fan from Watford says he “couldn’t have asked for anything more” after leaving Oaklands College in Hertfordshire where he was a student to spend a year at Wembley Stadium under the mentorship of its grounds manager, Steve Welch.

On completing the scholarship – which is sponsored by Toro and Lely UK – earlier this summer, James was snapped up by Spurs grounds manager Darren Baldwin and is now working across the Premiership club’s training grounds and stadium at White Hart Lane as assistant groundsman.

“Working at Wembley Stadium was a massive opportunity for me,” James comments, “but to follow that up with a move to a club I support is really something else! I feel so privileged to have been given this opportunity by Darren to work for him at Tottenham. I’ve settled in really well and am really excited for the future. Every day brings something new and the chance for me to learn new things.”

With Spurs due to start construction on a new multi-million-pound training facility in the New Year, Darren was seeking new staff. “Good staff are hard to come by and guys of James’ calibre just don’t come along every five minutes,” he says. “So to interview him and gain someone of his potential was too good an opportunity for us to miss.”

The skills and professionalism James developed during his scholarship have certainly impressed Darren. “He’s fantastic,” he says. “He’s hit the ground running and settled in very well. One of the benefits of working at the training grounds is that there’s more of an opportunity for him to use our machines, so he’s continuing to learn. To have someone of his quality is exciting for us and I’m sure James feels the same way too.”

James’ former mentor, Steve Welch, also says he’s “delighted” for James and the success that this has meant for the inaugural scholarship as a whole. “James joined Wembley Stadium at a demanding time for us and to have become an integral part of our grounds team during that year means he can take a lot of credit for what we achieved. If he continues working as hard as he has here, he’s got a bright future ahead of him in the turf industry. He can go as far as he wants to go.”

James’ winning streak, however, did not stop with his winning the scholarship in 2007 – he also scooped the 2008 Young Turf Professional of the Year Award at the recent Turf Professional Awards. Of this, James adds: “To win an award within my first year of being a groundsman is unbelievable! I feel honoured to be the first to win this award and hope that this, together with my time at Wembley Stadium and Tottenham, will set me on my way to becoming one of the bigger names in groundsmanship, like Steve and Darren.”