Magazine - Mark Perham's Major Headaches

By Editor in General Sports on 28th Feb 2010 7:00

Pity the poor groundsman when sports overlap their seasons. Add in the vagaries of Auckland's four-seasons-in-a-day weather and the stress level rises further.

But for Mark Perham those are only run-of-the-mill problems. For the past couple of years he has had the added problem of preparing one ground within a building site while developing another 45 minutes away. Perham, who is employed by the Eden Park Trust Board, is responsible for the preparation of the main Eden Park ground off Sandringham Rd and also Auckland Cricket headquarters at Colin Maiden Park in Glen Innes.

This week Perham could be found directing the restoration of the main ground under the shadow of the big cranes in preparation for the two internationals against Australia next Saturday, March 6, and the next Thursday. Across town his four staff and a couple of casuals were coping with the weather delays and taking the covers on and off at Auckland's four-day Plunket Shield game against Wellington at Colin Maiden Park.

From January last year the team rebuilt the Colin Maiden cricket block, enhanced the practice area and re-grassed the outfield, while also looking after the two Eden Park grounds until the builders took over the outer oval at the beginning of April. "Normally we'd put a rye grass in like at Eden Park, but with no in-ground irrigation at Colin Maiden that would have looked like desert out there now," said Perham. "So we used a warm-season grass and it was a bit bare at the start of the season, but you can see how quick it has come up now."

There are eight strips on the block and during the season from December 3 to April 1 there will have been 36 days of cricket, making it the busiest first-class ground after the Basin Reserve.

At Eden Park nets have had to be kept up for the Australian games, something that has blown the transport budget sky high because they don't have two sets of gear and four- and five-tonne rollers are not easy to cart across town.

The number one ground was stripped off in late November and sowed again on December 1. The pitch, which had been growing amidst the building debris, went in about a week ago. "The construction of the new stand had about 2000 square metres of the field. We're now starting laying turf on that. It will stay for about 11 days and then it's out of here again. "These are 10m long rolls of turf by a metre wide. They weigh about a tonne each. Rugby returns on March 19 and they don't need that area so it goes back to being a building site."



Source & More: www.nzherald.co.nz
By Bob Pearce

Read more articles in General Sports, by Editor or from February 2010.