Nick Marsh – Director
Career so far -
Nick has 18 years’ experience as a groundsman and started his career in 2006 as an apprentice groundsman, working at Reeds School in Surrey, in total he remained there for 11 years and became the deputy head groundsman at an incredibly young age.
Reed’s School offered grass sports pitches such as rugby, athletics and cricket. Cricket was a big facility for the school with 5 squares and also two sets of grass practise nets.
The cricket squares where widely renowned as some of the best wickets in Surrey; and was one of the reasons it was home of Surrey cricket for all the junior ages and also the ladies first team, as well as having the men’s first team often using it for
training sessions.
This level of sport offered Nick an amazing opportunity to gain experience in the art of fine turf management at a very young age at a high level.
Nick had the passion and desire to take his career further which the school recognised by providing him with many training courses centred around sports pitch maintenance and renovation.
Whilst working at the school he achieved. level 2 sports turf (horticulture and amenity) level 3 management sports turf (horticulture and amenity), PA1, PA2, PA4 and PA6 pesticide training course, powered access licence (nifty lift), chainsaw maintenance/felling small trees (NPTC, aerial reduce course).
Fields
Nick was extremely fortunate to have had Philip Mayers has his lecturer at college for four years during his level 2 and level 3 sports turf courses. Philip is highly qualified in the sports turf industry which led to him being head hunted for the main pitch advisor and agronomists’ position for the Fifa world cup 2022 pitches in Qatar; this included overseeing pitch construction, grow in and match
preparations.
During this time Philip was head groundsman for “Al Bayt Stadium” which held the opening ceremony and was the main venue for the Fifa 2022 world cup.
Having this level of lecturer was invaluable for Nick’s professional development. He keeps a regular dialogue with Philip to ensure continued growth.
In 2017 Nick decided to hand his notice in on his job at Reeds School as a Deputy Head Groundsman, which was a bold move. At the time many thought he was mad given it was a fantastic package including accommodation, but he was determined and driven to take his career further and expand his skillset across other sports turf venues and surfaces.
Nick became self-employed maintaining and renovating sports pitches at various sports clubs. His biggest success was working for East Molesey cricket club from 2014 to 2022, the head groundsman he worked hard to produce high quality wickets worthy of the Surrey cricket championship.
On arrival to his position the outfield was predominantly moss and the wickets had virtually no bounce which led to consistent low pitch ratings, they were among the worst in the league.
After many years hard work he was extremely proud to have elevated the standards at the cricket ground, the wickets were consistently being rated among the best in the league and the first team cemented their place in the Surrey championship premier division as one on the best teams; winning back to back Surrey championship premier division league titles in 2020 and 2021 season.
The outfield was awarded as the best in the league in 2022, as well as the arrival of a second ground for the season of 2022 which he also maintained, it was a great achievement given tight budgets and Covid restrictions, a proud moment for Nick and his team. Their sports turf maintenance and renovation skills had reached new and deserved levels of acclaim. Personally, it was a great achievement to see high profile players such as Adam Zampa, Kane Williamson, Henry Nichols and Ben McDermot playing on wickets Nick had prepared.
Sadly, all good things must come to an end, and it was clear East Molesey cricket club needed their own full-time employed grounds team.
Nick designed and implemented the build of their new grounds maintenance facility which paved the way for the club to buy and secure their own equipment.
The end of 2022 season also saw the end of eight years successful partnership and the passing of the baton to a full-time groundsman, Nick left with his head held high after eight years of immense success and huge growth both with the ground and the club.
Since 2022 Nick started “Sports Turf Limited”, a dedicated sports ground maintenance company offering high quality and comprehensive maintenance and renovation packages, designed for professional and amateur Grass sports venues throughout the southeast of England. Nick and his experienced team offer venues of all sizes the absolute best maintenance packages available within the industry, and most importantly we improve all venues we work with, check out our testimonials page to see our reviews and see who we work with, we look forward to hearing from you so we can put together a tailored package to improve your playing surfaces.
