According to a technical report on the UEFA Champions League in 2007, most top-level European managers feel that the importance of the playing surface is underrated. It never gets much attention from the media (other than when managers and pundits moan about it) but the quality of the pitch is vital to a football game’s success.
Along with dealing with nightmare weather conditions and stadium micro climates etc., groundsmen also have a role to play on match day. In La Liga, team captains are expected to relay information to them as the pre-match warm-up ends as to what kind of conditions are required for the game. At half-time, the groundsmen are expected in the home dressing room to provide up to-the-minute local weather forecasts based on satellite information, and convene with the captain and a member of the coaching staff to decide how much watering – if any – is required during the interval. Interesting, eh? Read on to discover more about Europe's ten best groundsmen.
10. Alan Ferguson, Ipswich Town
Yep, that’s right. The pitch may not be huge, but Alan Ferguson has been tending to the Portman Road turf with immaculate results for the past 13 years, winning the Groundsman of the Year award in his respective league in 5 of those years. No-one ever questioned the gruff old Scot’s commitment to Ipswich, but the fact that he turned down an offer to become Head Groundsman at the new Wembley sort of drove the point home. Had they managed to nab him, they might’ve been able to avoid the choppiness that dogged the new ‘home of football’ all the way up to last year’s FA Cup semi-finals.
9. Hermann Schulz, Hamburger SV
After maintaining the local golf course for over 10 years (he was greenkeeper at Gut Kaden, where the Deutsche Bank Players Championship of Europe is regularly held), Schulz moved on to tend to the pitch in the HSH Nordbank Arena; home of Hamburger SV and one of the slickest stadiums in Europe which hosted a World Cup quarter-final and has been chosen to host this season’s inaugural Europa League Final. Schulz may have it a little easier than some of the others on this list thanks to the fact that the stadium itself was specially rotated in its new incarnation to accommodate sunlight, and the fact that Hamburg’s temperate climate is more conducive to grass growth. Perhaps that’s why the pitch somehow retains an endearingly unpolished ‘local park’ look whilst simultaneously being refined enough to be one of UEFA’s few 5-star stadia suitable for hosting European finals.
8. Darren Baldwin, Tottenham Hotspur
Baldwin himself has stated that although White Hart Lane lends itself wonderfully to match day atmosphere, the build of the stadium doesn’t do him any favours when it comes to maintaining pitch condition, mainly due to the amount of shade it delivers. But despite that Baldwin was named Premiership Groundsman of the Year 2007, and is a constant fixture in nominations. Not that he’s a big fan of the award itself, seeing as it is awarded according to the opinions of ref and managers. Said Darren in 2003; “I am sure that everyone would agree that the award has become totally meaningless and will remain so whilst it is judged with the current criteria. There must be fairer ways of judging this award?” Harsh words indeed.
Spurs also use the patented Desso Grassmaster technology utilized by Arsenal, Liverpool and Anderlecht which apparently helps injury-prone players stay off the treatment table. Doesn’t appear to have done much for Ledley King’s knees has it? Maybe they should consider some sort of marshmallow-based pitch.
7. Alan Duffy, Swansea City
Laugh away o-Top-Four-supporter, you may or may not know this but Duffy was just this month crowned the IOG (Institute of Groundsmanship) Professional Football Groundsman of the Year. Yes, that does include Premier League teams. What makes his achievement even more impressive is the fact that Swansea is one of the top five rainiest places in Britain, and that the Liberty Stadium is also home to the Ospreys rugby team, meaning that Duffy and his team are tasked to keep the pitch pristine over a 54 game (or more) schedule.
It also means that multiple times per year they have to prepare for a football/rugby double header over the course of 36 hours. Such a schedule entails all-night sessions of pitch restoration, greening out the lines, and goal/post changes among other things. 2009 marked the first time the IOG has given such an award to a groundsman keeping both a rugby and football pitch. Not bad, eh?
6. Vincent Vlaminck, RSC Anderlecht
The Constant Vanden Stock Stadium, home to Anderlecht, is what’s known as a ‘closed’ one, i.e. its sides and corners are sealed from light and wind, much like the San Siro. This may sound more convenient for those sitting in the stands, but it means that teams like Anderlecht have traditionally had problems with pitch quality in the second half of the league season (from February onwards), simply because the grass begins to die from lack of exposure to sunlight and stagnation in the air inside the ground.
But over the past couple of seasons Vincent Vlaminck, Head Grounsdman (or ‘greenkeeper’ as he’s known) at the club has overseen the transition to a Desso Grassmaster field which utilizes grass reinforced with synthetic fibres to anchor the turf and ensure the field stays healthy and even all year round and also helps to protect the turf from chopping up. Anderlecht now have one of the smoothest, silkiest football pitches in all of Europe.
5. Terry Forsyth, Liverpool
I’ll freely admit I’m no keen-eyed pitch enthusiast, but even I couldn’t fail to notice over the years just how flawless and carpet-like the Anfield turf can look, especially at night with the floodlights on it. The man responsible for all this eye-candy is Terry Forsyth who joined the club as a groundskeeping apprentice at the age of just 17 and is now the Principal Groundsman of all of Liverpool FC’s ‘green bits’ as they’re known inside the club (that’s Anfield, the training ground at Melwood and the Youth Academy).
After repeated troubles with natural grass due to the amount of light and air kept off the field by the large stands, Liverpool eventually decided in 2000 to relay Anfield (with special attention paid to the wings) with the aforementioned Grassmaster technology. The results require no further explanation. It’s a well-known fact that the only reason Gerrard goes down so easily is because he loves to feel that high-quality grass rubbing against him. Blame Terry Forsyth.
4. Sander Xavier, Barcelona
What bigger job can there be than taking care of Europe’s largest stadium? The Nou Camp field is huge (105 metres by 68 metres) and the walls of the stadiums are high, yet problems with the pitch are never an issue. This is especially impressive when you consider the high demands placed on it. As mentioned in the intro fast, flowing football is reliant on a near-perfect playing surface, and Barcelona are perhaps the ultimate technical football team. On top of the demands placed by the fans and players for a pitch smoother than Bojan Krkic’s bottom, Xavier and his team have also had to deal with countless musical events and a mass congregation led by the Pope down the years. And all this with natural grass.
3. Rico Salomons/ Remy de Milde, Feyenoord
Even though it’s over seventy years old, Feyenoord’s ‘De Kuip’ stadium (officially the Feijenoord Stadion) has stood the test of time in more ways than one. Being built in a revolutionary fashion for its time- entirely out of glass, concrete and steel- it was a heavy influence on many subsequent world-famous stadia such as the Nou Camp. And the design of the stadium has helped the pitch to perform impressively; it has been significantly re-laid just five times in its entire history, which is quite amazing considering it survived World War II, and bearing in mind the new Wembley has already been re-laid six times.
Feyenoord recently switched back to natural grass after a dalliance with the Desso Grassmaster system, and it now uses Dutch ‘Stadium Grow Light’ greenhouse lighting technology (also utilized by Arsenal, PSV and Real Madrid) under the guidance of Rico Salomons (Stadium Manager) and Remy de Milde (Head Groundsman) to continue the pitch’s fine tradition; it has hosted more European finals than any other, as well as the Final of Euro 2000.
2. Paul Ashcroft, Arsenal
Arsenal has long been a bastion of truly excellent pitch standards, and newly-appointed Head Groundsman Paul Ashcroft, taking over from Paul Burgess, has been a part of that success for the past eight years as an assistant in one of the most advanced ground-keeping teams in the world. Winner of the Premier League Groundsman of the Year for this past season, Ashcroft and his team use, like a few others on this list, the Desso Grassmaster system but supplement that technology with further pioneering work in areas such as pitch-lighting (i.e. the artificial sunlight given to the grass between matches).
With the Emirates stadium not quite as grass-friendly as Highbury was thanks to its larger dimensions, Arsenal have, since the move, been at the forefront of discovering how to most effectively use the lights which can essentially give grass sunlight conditions 24 hours a day. Expect the club to remain one of the most forward thinking in the world in this respect, especially since they just posted a huge annual profit of over £35million.
1. Paul Burgess, Real Madrid
Let’s face it; to get head-hunted by Real Madrid for something, you have to be pretty good at it. Turns out Burgess was the man they wanted to ensure their pitch was slick enough to live up to the hundreds of millions in transfer fees they splashed out this summer. Arriving at Arsenal at 18, Burgess won the Premier League Groundsman of the Year award three times in his tenure at the club, being nominated for the award in each season he was eligible.
More importantly, he also won the IOG Turf Professional of the Year award in 2008- an award which is actually voted for by the groundsmen themselves. Burgess’s work at Arsenal helped to carve out the club’s current reputation as leaders in the field of, um, fields, and it was he who oversaw the first tests in both SGL and Grassmaster technologies at the club, both of which he also has at his disposal at Real (along with considerably more funding, one would assume). This year’s Champions League Final will be the perfect chance for he and his new team to show off their best abilities, and few would be against them succeeding.