Philip Sharpless”s groundsmanship course organized by SC Gabala reaches to the end with some certificates of the Institute of Groundsmanship for the club members. The English agronomists working for Gabala for a long time as a groundsman talks to gabalafc.az with key details of the course of 15 months:

“We started training Gabala groundsmen some years ago when we had only three men. During the years, we developed them and the pitches on the site. Then we employed more men to reach them to 10. Now what we want to do here is just similar what we have in England and in Europe, premier league pitches. To do that we must train the men as they have to full understand of their all job. It is not just about cutting the grass, watering them. It is about understanding the soil, weather, biology and physiology. It is more complicated for people to understand that. This is why people in Europe do this well as they have a good understanding of it. So they can keep excellent service.

So we want to do same here and we have done a one-year course in conjunction with the Institute of Groundsmanship in England. There are leading specialists for pitch making. We developed the course with them. We delivered the course here in Gabala for one year and 3 months. It was weekly lessons, practices with machines, tests of final exam and all of them passed very well. Now they have a good understanding of their job what they must to do, how to do. That will help Gabala go forward into the future.

I am not a groundsman, but an agronomist and these are different. Groundsmen understand how and when to mow the grass, how to put pesticides on the pitch, how to make the grass grow, how to cover pitches after matches. And agronomists have deep understanding of biology about the grass.

But it will take about 10 years for Gabala to have such specialists with deep understanding of the job. Because every pitches are different, as well as in Baku, Gabala and other regions. And that gives challenges for 10 years to understand the job.

In England, there are schools, as well as university, teaching groundsmanship where men study their 3 year full time courses. But at the moment, we don”t have it in Azerbaijan.”

Orkhan Yusifov, listener of the course, says:
“We started to the course in February 2014. He is from the Institute of Groundsmanship acting in England for more than 50 years. We learned much from him about physiology, biology, soil and pesticides for grass. We passed exams on the topics before undertaking some practices with machines. We gave also tests on pesticide matches. After the all-important exams, we gained our certificates. This is the first effort in Azerbaijan appearing in Gabala”.

Another listener Elvin Zamanly adds:
“Sharpless is really a powerful specialist and he teaches as all he knows about how to grow the grass. Before we met him, we knew only some practical things about the grass. But now we have well understanding of the job. We wish to learn this job more to help Gabala and Azerbaijan football progress into the better future”.