That fits then. You're right about him being stadium manager at some point, because a couple of mates of mine went to some sort of security meeting and John was was the chair.
Two of our groundsmen got sacked a while back didn't they, lost their case for unfair dismissal etc etc, done to death at the time on chat groups.
The day of the KC opening, before Steve Melton's christening tap in, we parked at BP in the afternoon and the gate in the north west corner was wide open, no-one around, so we couldn't resist the chance to say our goodbyes to the old place. We wandered onto the pitch, still intended for reserve/youth/training games so in pretty good nick. We diagonally walked to the centre-circle, then made a bee-line for the south stand goal, net still in place. Tried to imagine what it would be like to smash one home in front of that huge concrete bank and see a crowd erupt. Just as we were wishing we had brought a ball with us we heard a shout from above the old players tunnel and saw a red face scrambling down the seats.... .... "Oi lads, you shouldn't be here! How did you get in?!?!!!" We pointed to the gate and said we just walked in, we'd driven down from Newcastle, that we lived away and missed the last game, and took our opportunity to say our goodbyes to the old place..... .... " Well i have to ask you to leave, but I can tell you're decent lads..... ..... I'll be shutting that gate in about 15 mins, so if you need to take your time then you can.... .... Just be out in 10 and stay off that bloody grass yeah.... ???!". Don't think it was JC, was probably a minion but I did wonder whether that guy was one of the sacked ones. Whoever it was, I can never thank him enough for my perfect last memory of BP.
A poster used/uses the 1946 Hull City v Lincoln City programme as his avatar. Memory fails me as to who,maybe 'C'mon Ref' who retired from the board a year or so ago? My husband has his around somewhere in the house.
Boothferry parks pitch at its peak was probably the best playing surface I ever has the pleasure of playing on ( inside a ground ) only ever beaten by the surface at man utds training ground. The worst has probably got to be Scunthorpe utd! Its was basically sand/mud with a little grass poking out around the centre circle!
Just read where they have relaid the pitch at the Millennium Stadium in Cardiff and it is looking great. The turf was supplied by a Scunthorpe firm.
As DM says it was Stan Coombes. When they relaid Wembley after they were daft enough to hold the Horse Of The Year Show on it they asked Stan for advice on looking after the new pitch.
Lots of turf for sporting venues is grown in the Scunny area - one of the guys I go riding with delivers it all over the country: he's taken at least three loads to Wembley.
BP, Middlesbrough and Ipswich were consistently stated to be the best playing surfaces in the 60s and 70s. The turf at all 3 stadiums purportedly came from the same source.
I'm not sure if it was a myth, or my memory playing tricks, but wasn't it suggested that part of the secret was fish meal used as fertiliser?
Hull City's trade 'secret ' was they used a mixture of fish meal with the usual fertilizer. It was John Cooper who won awards for the pitch and he set up his own company advising and working on other club's pitches. The Boothferry Park pitch was ruined under Don Robinson when a mixture of salt and sand was used in huge quantities to defrost the pitch in order to get a rugby league international game played at the stadium, they succeeded but ruined the pitch. Cooper worked at the KC briefly as Stadium Manager and would sit in the police control room on matchdays.
No, it was indeed suggested that Stan said that. Whether he did, or whether he did and it was with tongue firmly in cheek I don't know.
Anybody putting salt on grass is an idiot (unless they are a Roman general trying to ruin the ground forever)
