The World’s Best

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The World’s Best: Laurence Gale goes back to university to discover what has made Loughborough the world’s best university for sport

Loughborough has been named the best sporting university in the world in the global QS higher education league table. It is actually the first time the annual QS World University Rankings by subject have included a list of the world’s best places to study sports-related subjects and Loughborough ranked joint-first with the University of Sydney, Australia.

This is a fantastic testament but fully justified by all the hard work done by both staff and graduates over the last 60 years. The ethos of the university brings together exceptional athletes, facilities, coaching and research expertise with extensive partnerships with major sporting organisations, such as Sport England, RFU, ECB to name a few.

 

Loughborough won the title in recognition of its unparalleled role in the triumph of the British Olympic and Paralympic teams at Rio 2016.

Over 80 students, graduates and Loughborough-linked athletes travelled to Rio to participate in both the Olympic and Paralympic Games. In the Olympic competition they secured 12 medals, including five golds, and if Loughborough University was a country they would have finished 17th on the medal table. Similarly during the Paralympic competition Loughborough-linked athletes secured a further 22 medals, signifying that Loughborough would have finished 10th in the Paralympics medal table if they were a nation.

With a total of plus 15,000 students on campus, coupled with around 400 performance student athletes, the university is a busy place to be during term times.

The World’s BestA total of 71% of students at Loughborough University regularly participate in sport at least once a week – Sport England Higher Education Sport Participation and satisfaction Survey for 2015/16.

From alumni to collaborative partners, and organisations that use campus as their HQ, Loughborough University is associated with a number of household names.

Some of the most celebrated names in sport have studied at Loughborough including Sebastian Coe, Paula Radcliffe, Dame Tanni Grey-Thompson and Sir Clive Woodward.

Loughborough University is home to the country’s largest concentration of world-class facilities across a wide range of sports, they include an indoor athletics centre and outdoor stadium, sports halls and all-weather pitches, a 50-metre swimming pool, squash, badminton and netball courts, an indoor tennis centre and outdoor courts, and state of the art fitness centres.

The grounds and gardens are maintained by the university’s own in-house grounds maintenance team consisting of 12 full time groundsmen and  20 full time gardeners of which two are fully trained  arborists. These teams are supervised by Managers William Relf (25 years’ service) who oversees all the sports facilities while Karen Setchell (32 years’ service) manages the gardening teams.

Will and Karen took over the running of the department in 2016 when the previous Estates Manager Mark Freeman retired.

The sports grounds team are split into three teams of four, one solely looking after all the Cricket facilities on campus, whereas the other two teams are split by geographical areas and cover a multitude of sports facilities.

The gardening team consists of five working teams, each with their own areas to manage and maintain. The Arborist team (one man and one woman) maintains all mature trees, two heritage woodlands and plantations on the site.

As for natural grass pitches the university provides thirteen senior natural grass pitches – six football, four rugby, one American football and one lacrosse. The pitches are renovated and topdressed every year using compatible sand dressings, applying between 60 and 100 tonnes per pitch.

Loughborough is also the home of the ECB National Cricket Academy and boasts some of the best cricket practice and playing facilities in the world.

The facilities include: Two natural grass cricket squares and outfields, sixteen outdoor cricket natural grass net areas (on Ongar clay), eleven artificial wickets (five outdoor and six indoor) Complete full size indoor net areas with full bowlers run up and wicket keeper area.

The university also provides some of the finest indoor and outdoor athletics facilities in the country. This includes the indoor High Performance Athletics Centre (HIPAC) enabling athletes to train and perform in the best environment available.

A new dedicated Athletics throwing arena is currently under construction and will be ready in the new year.

Tennis is exceptionally well catered for with 17 artificial courts of which, three are overhead irrigated American Fast Dry outdoor clay courts.  Three outdoor acrylic courts, Four indoor acrylic courts, four Plexipave indoor acrylic courts, plus two tarmac courts. The World’s Best

The university also has several full size artificial pitches on campus, all having different playing characteristics and maintenance requirements.

In the past many artificial surfaces were sold on the back of maintenance free advertising. This is just not the case at Loughborough. Will and his team spends nearly as much time on their artificial surfaces as they do on natural surfaces. The university has spent a lot of money investing in specialist brushing and vacuum machinery to keep these surfaces clean.

As for the tennis courts these are brushed daily while the American fast dry courts are again brushed daily, the frequency being dependent on use. This will usually be twice a day when busy. Generally, they are dragmatted with a rubber dragmat across the line of play, followed by another with a brush in the line of play.

They are then watered, using the pop up automatic irrigation system, to damp down the clay ready for play. It usually takes about an hour and half for one man to complete all the daily work on the three clay courts.

The courts also require topdressing twice a year, regular supplementary dressings throughout the season to maintain levels and a regular rolling programme.

A recent visit enabled me to meet up with Will and walk around the campus to see some of the latest industry developments going on. Will was keen to show me the new reinforced cricket pitch trials, where a number of his existing Onga and Boughton loam pitches and net areas have been sown with some artificial fibres simulating a SIS Grass/Desso style hybrid pitch system.

The results have been amazing with a dramatic reduction in wear and foothole damage, while ball bounce and turn has not been adversely affected.  Two colours of yarn have been tried, a green one and a brown one to see which one is ascetically pleasing to coaches and players.  It will be interesting to see how these pitches respond and recover from their end of season renovations. Will also said, that many of the players had not even noticed these fibres.

We then went on to see another ECB backed trial, that began last June, which saw three drop-in pitches installed into the universities cricket square.

Each pitch is contained in three steel trays, the object of the project is to be able to transport and use the pitch in a large capacity stadium, thus having the ability to play a cricket match at a different venue. Early signs are good, the 200mm deep trays are performing well. It is now a case of progressing to the next stage. Transporting and installing the pitches at a national stadium, and then play an international match on them?

Will was then keen for me to see the new throwing arena being built, that will house an outdoor covered throwing facility to accommodate javelin, discus and hammer athletes. This purpose built training centre will enable athletes to train all year round. The World’s Best

Just driving around the campus, made me realise how big and busy this place is, wherever you looked, there was a different sport activity going on.

One of the busiest times for Will and his staff is during late spring, when they have to change over from a winter sporting calendar into the summer feast of sports. This work also includes having to undertake spring renovations on some of the pitches.

Renovations are carried out on a rotational/need basis, and generally involves a programme of work that involves scarifying, aeration, topdressing and overseeding with some pitches getting a few weeks rest and recuperation.

Having a large fleet of machinery helps enormously, the ability to get around the campus quickly is paramount, all the teams are given a John Deere Gator to help transport themselves, machinery, tools and materials. Will also has a modern cutting fleet of ride on mowers to help cut the grass efficiently. A laser guided Kombi line marking system also saves time when marking pitches on a weekly basis.

The university have also invested in their own sprayers and aeration equipment to ensure they are able to carry out this work promptly and when they choose too, instead of waiting on contractor time frames.

As ever, Loughborough is definitely up there with the best Universities when it comes to managing and maintaining its estate, however, with so many top sports performers based at Loughborough expectations will always be high and the main driver for the grounds team to deliver top class sport facilities.

Inside the Webb

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Inside the Webb: Scott MacCallum catches up with Geoff Webb, the IOG’s Chief Executive and the man who steered Saltex to its new Birmingham home.

With two successful editions of the new NEC Birmingham-based Saltex under his belt you would think that Geoff Webb would be relaxed heading into the third version of the new Saltex. Not a bit of it.

“No, the short answer is no.” Is Geoff’s response to the assumption that there must be less stress now than there was in the lead up two years ago.

“Knowing that the success or failure of the show rests heavily on your shoulders and that the responsibility lies with me means that I’d love the answer to be yes. But it is no.”

Inside the Webb

It is that sort of honesty and commitment to ensuring that each Show is an upgrade on the one before which means that Saltex is in very good hands.

The decision to move from its long-standing home at Royal Windsor Racecourse at the beginning of September each year to the NEC in Birmingham at the beginning of November, was not one taken lightly by the IOG Board but they also took the decision backed by evidence of a downturn in attendance at Windsor and an underlying feeling that perhaps the Show had run its course in that little corner of Berkshire.

“I do think that the move (to NEC Birmingham) has proven to be a wise decision and I also think that it has elevated the grounds care sector and given us a Show that people seem to like.

“It is in the middle of the country with good transport links, while the new date seems to have fitted in much better with visitors’ schedules. It must also be recognised that we are never going to keep everyone happy but I do think that the endorsement has been the size of the exhibition itself which has grown year on year and visitors are coming back.”

Outside of expansion in exhibitor and visitor numbers, identifying the success of a Show can be very much a subjective thing but, prior to moving success criteria were identified. Judging by the success of the first two editions most of those boxes must surely have been ticked?

“Very much so. In fact, we are ahead of expectation of where we are to be honest. But the key thing is never to be complacent. We work on the basis that we are driven by improvement so at the end of every Show we go through and analysis everything. We look at visitor returns, we look at exhibitor returns, we pick up on issues and try to find a way to improve on them. That’s the responsibility we have got.”

And it seems to be an effective strategy with the 2017 Saltex going to break through the 300 exhibitor barrier which represents a year on year improvement while we are anticipating something like a 15% growth in visitor numbers as well.”

So what other elements go towards a successful Show?

“It’s a whole host of things. I think it’s the feel of the Show. The judge and jury on whether we’ve got it right or wrong is the general public and their reaction, thanks to social media, can be pretty much immediate.

“The first thing for us, prior to moving to Birmingham, was to manage successfully the transformation of the Show, which, let’s not forget, had been outdoors for 33 years in a row. There were a number of doubters, while a lot of other people stayed on the fence and more can along to the Show out of curiosity in year one, less so in year two.”

With those doubters having to reappraise their views the new look Saltex is offering much on many fronts.

“We’ve added value with attractions and features not least the wealth of products and information you will see and pick up at the event. We’ve also got the Industry Awards which sold out last year and look like being a complete sell out before the event this year. That’s 800 people and an event of which we are immense proud.”

Having spent a great deal of time reviewing feedback for all the Saltex stakeholders what tweaks have been carried out to improve the Show experience?

“Our team manages the transition of people going to the event and we have ring fenced the car park charges so that’s not going to rise, which is happening at other Shows. We’ve also got that discounted for IOG members. We’ve also discounted ground travel costs to get to the NEC and if you go to the Virgin website. We are also working with the NEC about improving the catering and refreshment facilities,” explained Geoff.

“Those are the logistical aspects to the Show but there are other areas within who learn by experience and being at the event. For example if the first year every theatre was outdoor but one of the issues we had was noise – either presenting of listening. So for the second year we sound proofed, and closed off the rooms but then we got feedback that it took away some of the atmosphere. So this year we are opening the theatres up again but we’ve got wireless headphones which we will give to all the delegates so that they will be able to hear the speaker. People will turn up put on the headphones and listen to the presentation while the exhibition is going off around them.”

That’s a prime example of looking at something which was perceived to be a downside and finding a solution.

“We are also having our own Show TV channel for the first time as well and will be carrying out pnm the spot interviews. It will also be the second year of the College Cup which proved to be such a hit last year and we have more colleges involved this year. Added to that, and again for the first time, we have an Advice Clinic for those interested in career development which will be managed by Frank Newberry.”

One of the main selling points for the new location for Saltex was the opportunities it created to open the doors to many more people to get to the Show.

“A really good example of this is Paul Burgess who, everyone knows is at Real Madrid and last year he came to me and said ‘This is great, Geoff. I’ve flown in from Madrid on a direct flight, got off the plane and walked to my hotel within 10 minutes and five minutes after that I was in the Show.’

“We had representatives from 43 countries last year. Before that it was predominately a UK-based Show. I do believe that Saltex is probably the largest sports turf ground management Show anywhere in the world.”

Hearing what Saltex 2017 has in store for us I don’t know about you but I think Geoff is being a little too harsh on himself if he feels as stressed now as he did two years ago before the first NEC Birmingham-based Saltex.

I’m not telling you to sit back and relax but just give yourself a bit of credit for two very successful Shows and the knowledge that Show Three looks well set to continue a very positive trend for Saltex.

Hat-trick for Myerscough at IOG Awards

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Hat-trick for Myerscough at national IOG Awards: A Myerscough College learner has been honoured with a national accolade at the prestigious Institute of Groundsmanship (IOG) Industry Awards 2017.

Tara Massey was named the Toro Most Promising Sports Turf Student of the Year. 20-year-old Tara has just completed her intermediate apprenticeship with Myerscough College, working as part of the grounds team at Manchester City Football Club.

Hat-trick for Myerscough at IOG Awards

Tara was praised for “her level of understanding (that) is nothing short of astonishing. The level of knowledge answers within her portfolio of evidence is more comparable to Level 3 and 4 work, and something that should be highly commended.” She completed her Level 2 programme in record time and now is looking to start the Level 3 programme.

The Institute of Groundsmanship (IOG) Industry Awards are now in their ninth year and acknowledge the passion, dedication and challenges faced by grounds staff, volunteers and professionals across all levels of sport. Myerscough was once again well represented at the awards, with sportsturf learners past and present nominated in a number of categories.

In addition to Tara, former Myerscough College learner, James Wood, was named Young Groundsman of the Year. James completed a BTEC in Sportsturf before joining Manchester City. Meanwhile, Myerscough alumni Paul Burgess, who is now the Head Groundsman at Real Madrid, was given a Special Recognition Award.

They were given their awards at the ceremony, which is part of the annual SALTEX exhibition, where almost 700 of the UK’s and Europe’s leading grounds care experts from both the professional and volunteer sector, as well as dignitaries from the governing bodies of sport and influential sports administrators, honoured the expertise, dedication and passion of the grounds profession.

Lee Price, Employer Services Manager at Myerscough College said: “This is fantastic news for the College and congratulations to Tara. The IOG Awards winners can inspire more young people to consider a career in sportsturf. It’s great to celebrate so much success in the industry.’’

Tara Massey said: “I would say to other young women interested in the industry to not be scared, do not be put off and to just go for it. It’s a great job where no two days are the same, you have to solve lots of problems but you can often quickly see the rewards for you efforts.”

“I’ve really enjoyed the college side of my apprenticeship and never realised there was so much to the job. In the future I would like to progress both in my role and in my education and take things as far as I can.”

It’s the second successive year the category of Most Promising Sports Turf Student of the Year has been won by a Myerscough College learner, after fellow Manchester City sportsturf apprentice, Katie Croft, won the award in 2016.

There was further recognition for Myerscough College as the award for the National Governing Bodies Professional Sports Grounds Team of the Year went to Manchester City FC. The whole of the team completed their sportsturf training with Myerscough College.

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Reesink Launches New Toro Rotary Mower

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Reesink Launches New Toro Rotary Mower Designed To Increase Productivity and Decrease Downtime: ProLine H800 goes longer between stops for effortless mowing.

Reesink has announced the arrival of a brand-new Toro rotary mower designed to improve productivity by going longer between stops.

Reesink Launches New Toro Rotary Mower

Revealed at SALTEX 2017, the ProLine H800 direct collect rotary mower promises to boost productivity and revolutionise clipping clear-up for groundscare professionals across the UK.

With a 41ltr fuel tank and 810ltr collector, plus the ability to change the height of cut without stopping, Reesink Turfcare says productivity is at an all-time high with this machine.

Jeff Anguige, national sales manager at Reesink, says: “This launch will appeal to councils and landscape contractors looking for minimum downtime. The fuel tank is large enough to power a full day’s work, while the generous capacity of the collector is accompanied by a sensor which alerts the operator when it’s full. This avoids unnecessary stopping to check and empty it.”

In fact, you barely have to give clipping collection a second thought: “With the ProLine, you simply switch the mower on and go, most of the chores are done for you. Once the collector is full, the deck automatically disengages to prevent overfilling or grass going uncollected. Clippings can be emptied into a truck bed effortlessly with the high lift system, which can be raised to almost two metres in height and remotely controlled from the operator’s station,” explains Jeff.

To reduce interruptions further, the height of cut can be changed to between 20-110mm from the operator’s seat, enabling quick and intuitive adjustment. No time is wasted stopping to unclog the machine either, thanks to automatic deck cleaning wipers.

This machine is perfect for those with a large workload on a tight schedule. The 26.1hp engine powers up to 12,000m2 of mowing per hour, throughout which the ProLine’s high performance cutting system delivers a clean quality of cut ideal for sports fields and commercial sites.

Added to that, the machine affords excellent visibility, enabling trimming right up to the edges of pathways and borders within parks and urban areas. Built with durability in mind, the ProLine’s deck boasts a welded bull nose bumper and heavy-duty caster forks to withstand any knocks thrown its way, and long-lasting skid protection makes it a machine to be relied on.

A durable and intuitive new addition to Reesink’s product line, the Toro ProLine is set to impress those with no time to stop.

For more information, visit: reesinkturfcare.co.uk

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Durham CCC Groundsmen Honoured

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Durham County Cricket Club groundsmen honoured for keeping Chester-le-Street ground pitch perfect: Some of the unsung heroes of North-East sport have been honoured for their dedication to keeping a cricket field pitch perfect.

The grounds team at Durham County Cricket Club has won two major honours at this year’s Institute of Groundsmanship (IOG) Industry Awards.

Durham CCC Groundsmen Honoured

The club won the Headland Amenity Professional Cricket Grounds Team of the Year and head groundsman Vic Demain was named individual Groundsman of the Year.

Both awards were presented at a ceremony at the National Conference Centre, in Birmingham, hosted by Talksport radio presenter Mark Saggers.

Mr Demain was appointed head groundsman at Chester-le-Street in 2015, following two years as deputy head groundsman at Trent Bridge.

The Durham grounds team of four full-timers and one part-timer ensure the Emirates Riverside Stadium pitch is maintained to the level demanded of an international cricket ground.

They keep records of moisture content and hardness of every match pitch, which are forwarded to the ECB so that a data picture is created for every game.

They also compile a daily record of all work undertaken on the pitch, and of daily temperatures and rainfall.

As well as internationals, the ground hosts County Championship, 50-over and T20 fixtures for Durham’s first team, second XI and academy sides, along with other events including rock and pop concerts.

The grounds team is also overseeing development of a new second XI pitch next to the stadium.

Mr Demain said he holds regular meetings with other groundsmen to: “reach out to the local community of groundsmen to help them develop within the industry”.

IOG chief executive Geoff Webb, said: “This year’s awards demonstrate the skills and passion of groundsmanship throughout the UK.

“Winning an award is testament to the dedication of the grounds teams and individuals whose ability to produce and maintain ever-improving playing surfaces, which enables more games to take place, goes largely unnoticed.”

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