Pitch to be proud of at Villa

With a pitch to be proud of you might expect Villa's award-winning head groundsman Jonathan Calderwood to savour games at Villa Park.

Yet nothing could be further from the truth. In fact, the Perton-based Northern Irishman, who has just been named Groundsmans' Groundsman of the Year, admits he positively can't stand watching the claret and blues on his prized surface – because he frets over things going wrong.

He smiled: "I love going to the away games. When Villa are at home I just don't settle. You are anxious someone might slip over, you're asking yourself 'is the pitch too wet or too dry or is it the right height'. You are on edge all the time.

"It's like anyone's job. You miss half the game, because you are looking at the pitch. It sounds quite sad! There's so much money involved, so one slip or one bad bounce can make all the difference.

"Years ago people probably accepted sub-standard pitches, a bobble was just one of those things. But now, with Sky TV, there are cameras everywhere and it's being watched worldwide.

"I have friends in the industry who work all around the world. When you get a text from the Bahamas saying they're watching and the pitch looks great it's alright but when it's bad it's a nightmare!

'I never get to see their work!"

Ironically, Calderwood, hails from Ballymena, County Antrim, just 12 miles from Villa boss Martin O'Neill's hometown village of Kilrea in County Coleraine.

But his involvement with Villa dates back beyond O'Neill's reign having been plucked from Wolves by then-claret and blue chief Graham Taylor.

The Northern Irishman arrived at Villa with a glowing CV, having been the deputy groundsman at the old Wembley Stadium before perfecting the pitch at Molineux, winning the award for best surface in 2002.

He explained: "Originally I was at the old Wembley but then I was made redundant in Christmas 2000 because the stadium closed for redevelopment, so obviously had to leave.

"Wolves was the first head job that came up. It was just coincidence really. I had no allegiances to them prior to that. Head jobs in football don't come up very often.

"A lot of people stay in them for years. Sometimes the jobs that do come up aren't the best, but Wolves appealed to me so I went there. I was head groundsman there for a year and then Aston Villa were struggling a little bit with the pitch at the time.

"Graham Taylor came back for the second time as manager, he changed things around and brought me in."

Calderwood is responsible for ALL of the pitches at the Bodymoor Heath training ground and Villa Park.

And it is for the upkeep of all 13 of those surfaces that he has won his latest gong, awarded by the Institute of Groundsmanship (IOG).

He said: "There are two awards. There's a Premier League award – I came runner-up in that in the summer when Arsenal won it.

"The other one is the IOG. It's like a players' player of the year except for groundsmen. It's open to all the clubs in the league. The Premier League one is more for just the stadium pitch, this one is more personal. It's about what you do as a groundsman overall."

But it could all have been very different for the 31-year-old, who has been doing the job since he was 18. Having left his boyhood club Glentoran, he studied a Higher National Diploma in Sports Turf Management and Golf Course design at Preston University.

Calderwood had already completed a six-month placement at Wembley as part of the course and was preparing to head out to America to spend half a year at the LA Country Club in Bel Air. But then the phone rang.

He said: "The day before I was due to fly out, Wembley called and said they had lost their deputy head groundsman to FC Copenhagen and asked if I would take a full-time position.

"I love my football and, while it would have been nice to have gone out to Bel Air ,I could have come back and been struggling to get a job.

"Having Wembley on your CV has been fantastic. I haven't done an interview for a job since."

As for those flawless fields, Calderwood admits he can't take all of the credit.

He said: "Technology is improving all the time and the pitches are getting better. I wouldn't say they are easier to maintain, they are getting more complicated.

"The old pitches used to be soil-based, so it was easier to grow grass into the soil. Now they are sand-based pitches. The pitch at Villa Park is 99.9 per cent sand.

"Trying to grow grass on sand should be impossible but with the techniques that we've got – fertilisers, ultra-violet lights – we can make it happen."

O'Neill is well known for running Villa from top to bottom – and that goes for the pitch too.

Calderwood said: "Martin does tell me what to do with it but we know what he wants now. We don't change it for any specific games.

"He likes it short and quite wet and tries to promote fast, quick football and that's what we aim for."

And is the grass greener since swapping Molineux for Villa Park?

He said: "I support Villa now but I've still got a soft spot for Wolves. It's the first result I look out for – after Villa's!"