F rhythm of Mark Williams’ s work was dictated by
PITCH & LINE MARKERS
Mark’ s New Way of Marking
or three decades, the
F rhythm of Mark Williams’ s work was dictated by
the steady push of a pedestrian line marker. But the moment he first saw TinyMobileRobots, a whole new world opened up.
“ After all these years, I said to myself, why didn’ t I come up with something like that? It was a godsend. Basically, TinyMobileRobots reinvented line marking,” Mark Williams explains.
Mark Williams is one of two people responsible for line marking at Morris Grounds Maintenance, a company that provides grounds maintenance for over 150 schools, academies, football and rugby clubs across the Cardiff and Newport areas. At some sites, pitches are marked every four days. This means that Mark Williams marks dozens of pitches. The robot, therefore, helps him a great deal.
“ Once you have set everything up on the tablet, your pitches are saved forever. For me, the robot is so easy to use. I don’ t have to be an IT engineer to operate it. The tablet is user-friendly, with all the settings ever needed. It even stops when it runs out of paint,” says Mark.
Mark Williams manages over 100 fields, and a standard football pitch can be done in 25 minutes, which is at least half the time it would take to mark manually. The time saved is crucial for Mark, allowing him to make full use of the periods when the robot is operating:
“ Before, it took a whole day to do an athletic track field with discus and everything. Now, it’ s all done within an hour and a half. And during that time, when the robot is working, I’ m taking down posts or cutting the grass. I usually cut one pitch, get the robot going, then cut another pitch and let the robot just work behind me,” he explains.
The robot has also enabled Mark to go beyond sports pitches. He now marks letters and numbers onto fields – just to add something a little extra. The ability to create logos, in particular, has made him quite popular.
“ A couple of weeks ago, Newport Rugby Club celebrated its 150th anniversary as a club. And I put their logo on the field. It was brilliant- everyone at the club was impressed; they loved it.
56 GroundskeepingJournal. co. uk | May / June 2025