With the results of the English grounds managers being showcased on international TV multiple times a week, it is easy to understand why grounds managers around the world watch in awe at what is achieved in the UK. In our interviews with sports turf professionals in other countries or on other continents, the GMA is often mentioned as the one organisation that they look to for guidance, in the absence of a national representative body. Geoff Webb, CEO of the GMA, can understand where that is coming from. “I think it is because we are probably the longest established association of its kind within the sports turf world,” he says modestly. For a 90-year-old the GMA is still pretty active and dynamic. Although Webb admits that the GMA primarily focuses on the UK, it does lend a helping hand to organisations elsewhere in the world to get to a similar level. “The experiences that we’ve had to get to where we are, we have shared with others,” he states. “Quite often, we go over to, in particular, the Sports Field Management Association (SFMA) in America, and we’ve had Americans come over to us.” And with the help of a passionate turf professional from the Balkans, some of the online training courses that are available on the website, have been translated to Serbo-Croat.

While the GMA does not specifically cater for foreign professionals, Webb points out that their annual trade show, Saltex plays an important role in bringing these international professionals together. “Saltex in particular has become a kind of global meeting point for the sector. Last year we had people from about 55 countries visit the trade show itself. So I think the show helps get the name out there and the companies and the products that they all have from within the UK. But I have to say that there are some really good products across Europe and some leading companies across Europe as well,” is his invitation to the world.

A joint success

The pitches we see on TV are the absolute very best of what grounds management in the UK has to offer. Yet, most of the GMA’s effort is directed to grounds management at grassroots level. “We work closely with the sports governing bodies in this country on what we call a pitch advisory service. That programme really is encouraging best practice in how to maintain sports pitches at community level. We work across sports, in particular with football but we also have two codes of rugby here rugby league and rugby union and we have cricket. What we do with all four of those sports is work with their teams to look at where we can improve the services themselves, but also to improve the standards of the people that are involved with those surfaces. We have a unique programme and a really good relationship with the sports governing bodies to work on a strategic basis, with targets set to turn pitches from poor pitches into good ones.” Data on the state of pitches is collected by means of surveys. “We’ve done over 10,000 site surveys across England and the results are really, really interesting to us. We use the data to assess the overall pitch quality which align to our pitch grading framework (GMF) and also the educational attainment levels of those maintaining the surface / facility.”

Raising the profile

Another focus area for the GMA is raising the profile of the industry. “We need to fight that corner all the time and make sure that people are paid fairly and appropriately for the work and the skill sets that they’ve got. So we do a lot of work year-round to raise the profile of the sector.” At the same time, a lot of effort is put in to save the profession from unrealistic pressure. “One of the biggest issues is how the ground staff manage capacity and how they then manage themselves, because they are asked to do more hours of work, probably on the same pay, and possibly don’t get the overtime pay that they deserve as well. This can drive stress levels to a high end and a high degree.” To some extent, he blames Covid for this. “I think Covid exacerbated that, when a lot of facilities were shut down and they were using skeleton crews. In some cases, we know that people haven’t reemployed the workforce to take that pressure off the existing team.”