Anthony Facey

In all honesty I kind of fell into it by accident, I love sport and started volunteering at my local cricket club (Witham CC) at the age of 15 simply because I wanted to drive the tractor, Unfortunately two years later the two stalwarts of the club who also looked after the ground, Barrie Keeble and John Wilson passed in quick succession. This left me and my twin brother, Stuart to run all aspects of the ground, which I thoroughly enjoyed and pushed me towards a career in groundsmanship.

After volunteering at Witham and Essex CCC I set about looking for a local groundsman Job. After a brief spell of grounds maintainace for the MOD, I landed a Job at Felsted School. Three years later and I was ready for a new challenge, which Whitgift offered. I thoroughly enjoying working under Dan Ratling but an opportunity working at tottenham hotspurs training ground which I jumped at and thoroughly enjoyed working at one of the best facilities in the world where standards are very very high. I now find myself in my first management role at Colchester United FC.

NVQ Level 2 and Level 3, PA1, PA2 and PA6, GMA Foundation & Intermediate course on Cricket pitch preparation, St Johns First aid at work, Manual handling.

Chainsaw certification and teleporter are on my list for the near future and after some great plant and soil science chats with Dan and some of the guys at Spurs a degree of some sort within the next year or two.

Working at Colchester utd involves a wide range of day-to-day jobs. The day normally involves me juggling my time between being on the tools and organising and planning work, man management, budgeting, meeting coaches/company reps and all the usual goings on when running a site.

Mother Nature, Keeping the standards through the different weathers & educating coaches and players about our job and responsible use of the pitches.

To see my staff learning and growing more and more confident and genuinely happy to be at work and everyone working towards improving standards.

Being nominated for 2015 young groundsman of the year, contributing to Whitgift’s 2015 independent school/university grounds team of the year & Tottenham’s 2016 Football grounds team of the year award.

I would hopefully like to be a Grounds Manager in either a school or football club.

I always admired how Barrie & John managed at our cricket club which I imagine is how every other volunteer is surviving, Stuart Kerrison at Essex CCC as he has taught me a lot and has a very good ethos for young groundsman starting out. I also admire every boss and team I’ve worked in along the way all including the spurs lads I worked with, They have been in so many different parts of the industry and brought something else to the table for me to take on board which I am so greatful for.

I enjoy promoting our industry to young people; we are a great industry and surely are the next best thing from playing sport professionally. I also enjoy exchanging information and experiences with other groundsman and feeding back to the GMA. I think this is so important as without people’s opinions we wouldn’t be able to improve.

I still play cricket and volunteer at Witham CC and on the Essex Groundsman Association. I like to socialize with friends and play pool. I’m also a member at my local golf club.