WORDS: COLIN YOUNG
PICTURES: TOM BANKS
How off-field operations are
boosting a football club that
is “pride of County Durham”
Jonny Cope – Spennymoor
Town's commercial manager,
prepares to welcome visitors
to the bars, restaurants and
new club shop.
Direction – Tony Wilson was
appointed Spennymoor Town's
first managing director.
Spadework – groundsman Mark
Sleightholme marks the pitch on
match day after five months of
renovations and repairs.
MOORS
MEAN BUSINESS
E
arly Saturday morning. Mark
Sleightholme’s lawnmower breaks the
silence and first frost of winter as he
criss-crosses over the pristine Brewery Field
pitch.
In seven hours, Spennymoor Town host
Southport FC in their 100th Vanarama
National League North game.
Mark, full-time groundsman, who
nurtured his green fingers in the Premier
League at Sunderland’s Stadium of Light,
spends an hour lightly cutting the moist
green surface.
He then marks the pitch for another
hour, trundling along white strings with his
squeaky line-marker. Every blade is loved.
And no wonder.
Mark, who handcuts the grass for three
hours every two days, said: “A year ago, this
fixture would have been postponed. When I
came, the club made promises and they have
delivered and we have a fantastic pitch to be
proud of.”
Close season pitch improvements took five
months. Years of mis-management created a
circle of sand beneath the 120-year-old pitch,
repeated postponements and fixture backlogs
which have hindered Spennymoor’s recent
progress.
With substantial Football Foundation
28
funding, contractors took 30 per cent off the
infamous slope, removed two inches from
the top layer and laid down 400 tonnes of
sand, 200 tonnes of gravel, 37 drain lines, 24
pop-up sprinklers, three-metre full lateral
drains and perimeter drains and, finally,
countless Grade A rye grass seeds.
The pitch is now so good, England
Lionesses trained on it prior to their recent
friendly against Brazil at Middlesbrough’s
Riverside Stadium.
There was a six-figure investment in major
summer works on the ground, too, adding
in a new covered stand, renewing terracing
capacity, new turnstiles, CCTV, a new club
shop and a glistening new Sports Bar in the
south corner. Capacity is now touching
4,000, with the foundations in place to
increase this significantly in the future.
Club secretary David Leitch arrives at
9am, unlocks the main gates and stadium
entrance, lighting up rooms, offices and
corridors in the main stand.
He heads to a spotless and silent first
team dressing room, meticulously places
goodies on tables with energy drinks and
medical supplies before hanging initialised
training tops on the hooks around the
room. Numbered black and white striped
first team shirts sit on a small rail near the
showers, ready for Jason Ainsley’s final team
announcement. After that, the sweeties and
silence will be destroyed.
David, who oversaw every second and
detail of the pitch and ground renovations,
is just as hands-on with match day
administration.
He says: “We have had a lot of changes and
what we have achieved already is remarkable.
The facility itself has been completely
transformed, the playing staff continues to
improve, we have nearly 500 juniors in our
academy who are all season ticket holders,
six UEFA A licence coaches, a full-time
academy director, attendances are over 1,000
every week and we are reaching out to local
businesses with 35 members of our Business
Club.
“There is so much going on behind the
scenes and we have a chance to make a
huge difference to the community through
football.”