Taking over a cricket square: a starter guide

Every September, at hundreds of clubs, somebody agrees to become the new cricket groundsman. Sometimes there is a handover. More often there is a shed key, a mower of uncertain temperament and a committee that is very pleased to see you. This guide is for that person: the volunteer taking over a cricket square with more goodwill than instruction.

The good news first. Grass wants to grow, squares are more forgiving than they look, and everything the last groundsman knew can be learned. Here is where to start.

First fortnight: learn the ground before you touch it

Resist the urge to start mowing things. Spend the first couple of weeks finding out what you have inherited:

• Walk the square slowly. Count the pitches, find the worn ends, note which strips look tired and which look unused. The wear map is last season's story written in the grass.
• Find the records, or note their absence. A diary, a spreadsheet, invoices in a drawer. What loam was bought, what seed, what was played where. If the answer is nothing, your first gift to the club is starting the record, on paper or in something built for it.
• Audit the shed. What machines exist, whether they start, when they were last serviced, what fuel they take, where the keys live. List what is missing.
• Meet the neighbours. The fixture secretary (who controls your workload), the treasurer (who controls your budget), and whoever mowed the outfield until now. Groundsmanship is one third grass, two thirds people.

The year at a glance

The whole craft hangs on a simple calendar. Each season has one headline job:

Two of those deserve flagging for a first-year groundsman. The autumn renovation is the most important fortnight of the year, and it is very doable as a beginner with the guide above and a hired scarifier. And the summer cycle runs on a pitch allocation plan made when the fixtures come out, which is what stops July becoming a weekly scramble for a usable strip.

Kit that actually matters

Clubs accumulate machinery folklore. The genuine essentials for a natural square are shorter than the shed suggests:

• A cylinder mower for the square (rotaries are for the outfield).
• A roller, ideally heavy, for pre-season and pitch preparation.
• A scarifier, owned or hired each autumn.
• A brush or drag mat, the most underrated tool at the ground.
• A marking frame and wheel-to-wheel measuring tape, because straight, accurate creases are the one job everyone sees.
• Covers of some kind, even basic sheets, to protect prepared pitches.

Everything else can be hired, borrowed or budgeted for later. A serviced mower and a sharp blade beat a shed full of projects.

Help is close and mostly free

No groundsman learns alone, and the support network for club cricket is genuinely good:

• Your county pitch advisor will visit, look at your square and tell you what it needs, usually at no cost. Ask your county cricket board.
• Entry-level courses in cricket grounds maintenance run every winter, online and in person, and cover the fundamentals in a day or two.
• The Grounds Management Association's cricket resources are the reference library for every job in this guide.
• Other groundsmen. The one at the club up the road has fought your exact soil for twenty years. Most are delighted to be asked.
• Your suppliers. Loam and seed merchants advise for free, because a groundsman who succeeds reorders.

The five beginner mistakes

1. Cutting too short too early. Scalping the square in March weakens it for the whole season. Come down gradually.
2. Rolling at the wrong moisture. Rolling sodden ground seals it; rolling dry ground polishes it. Roll when the profile is moist and plastic.
3. Skipping the renovation. The one unforgivable omission. Everything else is recoverable.
4. Buying whatever loam is cheap. Unmatched loam creates layers that break up pitches for years. Match what is on the square.
5. Keeping it all in your head. The way the last groundsman did, which is why you started with nothing. Write it down as you go.

A last word on the role

The square will not be perfect this year. It does not need to be. It needs to be safe, honestly prepared and a little better each season, and the club needs to see someone learning it in the open rather than guarding it in private. Keep records, ask for help early, and by your second autumn you will be the one the new volunteer at the next club gets sent to.