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# A year in the life of a groundsman
- URL: https://pitch.ghostcms.templates.codememory.com/a-year-in-the-life-of-a-groundsman/
- Published: 2026-06-19T17:30:00.000Z
- Updated: 2026-06-19T17:30:00.000Z
- Description: Seeding in May, stripes in August, frost sheets in January. Fourteen years and six postponed games.
- Author: Ellie Bramwell
- Tags: Features, #Import 2026-10-02 15:58

Mary Okonkwo is the groundsman at Station Road, home of Millbrook Town. She prefers "groundsman" to "groundswoman", she says, because "the grass doesn't care". She has looked after the pitch for fourteen years. We followed her through a year of mowing, rolling, seeding and praying for the right weather.

![Fresh white lines on match day. Mary paints them by hand, twice a week.](https://pitch.ghostcms.templates.codememory.com/content/images/2026/10/grass-lines-1.jpg)

Fresh white lines on match day. Mary paints them by hand, twice a week.

## Spring: recovery

At the end of the season, in May, the pitch is tired. The goalmouths are bare, the centre circle is worn, and the corners have been dug up by a whole season of corner kicks. Mary starts the recovery the morning after the last game: she scarifies the surface to remove dead grass, spikes it to let air into the soil, then seeds the bare patches and covers them with soil.

## Summer: growing

In June and July, the pitch is closed. Mary waters it every evening and mows it every other day. This is when the grass grows deep roots, which decide how the pitch will survive the winter. "If you get the summer right, the winter is just hard. If you get the summer wrong, the winter is a disaster."

## Autumn: the season

From August, the pitch is in use, and Mary mows it twice a week to 28 millimetres, the length the manager likes. The famous stripes are not painted: they are made by the mower's roller bending the grass in different directions. She marks the lines on Thursday and touches them up on Saturday morning.

> People think I cut grass. I grow grass. Cutting is the easy part.  
>  
> **Mary Okonkwo**

![A frosty morning. Six postponed games in fourteen years.](https://pitch.ghostcms.templates.codememory.com/content/images/2026/10/grass-frost-1.jpg)

A frosty morning. Six postponed games in fourteen years.

## Winter: the battle

Winter is the hard part. Rain turns the goalmouths to mud; frost can stop a game. Mary covers the pitch with frost sheets on cold nights and walks it with a fork after heavy rain to let the water drain. She has a list of every game postponed in fourteen years: there are only six.

## The tools

Mary's shed is small and very tidy. Everything has its place:

- A cylinder mower, for the stripes and the close cut.
- A roller, for flattening the surface after a hard game.
- A line-marking machine, which uses about ten litres of white paint a week.
- A spiker, a fork and a rake, for letting air and water into the soil.
- A frost sheet big enough to cover both goalmouths.

"The best tool is your feet," she says. "Walk the pitch every day and it will tell you what it needs."

## The match day

On match days, Mary arrives at 7 a.m. She checks the pitch for frost, divots and anything thrown over the fence in the night. She marks the lines, sets up the nets, and talks to the referee at 1:30\. During the game, she stands by the tunnel and watches the grass, not the ball. After the final whistle, she walks the whole pitch, replacing every divot by hand. It takes an hour. Then she goes home and checks the weather forecast.