SportsTurf provides current, practical and technical content on issues relevant to sports turf managers, including facilities managers. Most readers are athletic field managers from the professional level through parks and recreation, universities.
Issue link: http://read.dmtmag.com/i/517437
www.stma.org June 2015 | SportsTurf 31 In Azerbaijan in October 2010 the infrastructure for profes- sional soccer pitches throughout the entire country was poor. Pitches were poor, stadiums were poor (generally Soviet-type constructions that were falling to pieces) and the general set up for professional soccer was, you guessed it, poor! But things quickly changed, and over the past 5 years the country has rectified this situation. As I see it, there were three catalysts: the vision of my current boss and owner of Gabala FC to build a leading European-style facility; the fact that the country secured their first professional soccer tournament, the 2012 FIFA U17 Ladies World Cup; and the vision of the coun- try's Football Association (AFFA). It also helped a little that we produced fantastic pitches in Gabala to show just what was possible here. When I arrived in Azerbaijan I was told that you cannot grow quality grass there because they had tried before with little success, due to the high summer temps and high humid- ity. Not only was there absolutely no data on what to expect from disease pressure, what sports turf grasses are/were suited to the climate (summer 40 degrees; winters to minus 10), what the expected weed types were, what the likely ET rates and humidity would be, no soil testing labs, nothing; there were also no trained staff in the country. So, we needed to start literally from scratch. No sports turf equipment dealer infrastructure, no machinery, no fertilizer, no pesticides. At first we imported everything from the UK. TRAINING A BIG ISSUE How do you go about training staff from scratch? How do you begin to train staff with no background in turf management, not just for general groundsmanship, but also for managing first-class professional soccer surfaces and all in a very short period of time? Staff that initially had very little knowledge of the English language let alone sports turf terminology and processes! There are three key points that are a must when it comes to getting novice guys up to a high standard quickly. Number one is the attitude of the employee and number two is the knowl- edge and attitude of the trainer, and number three, having a well-thought-out plan. Everything else will follow, so long as these are in place. We started with the interviews, looking for the right type of personality. Luckily, my background in turf management also included a 9-year stint as a turf lecturer. I understood the training process (and understood how important it is to have a trained "trainer" to carry out the process). So a methodi- cal approach was planned and we set to getting the basics right from the start. When I say basics, I mean ensuring the