Dan’s the man at the Liberty Stadium
Dan Duffy is a very busy man as he lovingly tends to turf at the Liberty Stadium in Swansea where both Swansea City AFC and the Ospreys rugby team play their home matches and so we were delighted when he found a moment to chat to us for our ‘Sports Spotlight’ feature about his sporting involvement in both his native Australia and here since he met a Pembrokeshire lass and made this county their home.
Dan has recently learned that the pitch at the Liberty has been nominated in the top three in the English Championship division, along with Preston’s Deepdale pitch and the St Mary’s Ground at Southampton. It is a remarkable achievement but even more so for Dan because he has to provide surfaces for football and rugby, no mean feat when sometimes the Swans play on a Tuesday evening and the Ospreys play on Wednesdays.
Bridge Meadow and the North Sydney Oval
Dan was previously the groundsman at the Bridge Meadow Stadium in Haverfordwest, where he started out on the good work that earned him this current reputation of being a top groundsman: something he had done from the time that he left school at 16 and was eventually heavily involved with the pitch at the North Sydney Oval, where there was all-year round usage for cricket, rugby union, rugby league and even football as the weather was good for preparing different pitches.
It was the first ground to have a ‘drop-in’ wicket where they played cricket for two weeks and then football for another two weeks with the newly-formed Northern Sprint
alongside regular rugby league with the North Sydney Bears and rugby union with the Northern District Rugby Union. The ground held 25,000 people and it was often full for rugby matches of both codes.
Good at rugby and surfing – hopeless at cricket!
Dan had grown up playing rugby at centre with Illawarra Catholic Club in St George’s, Sydney, played Aussie Rules for half a season until he was stretchered off and enjoyed cricket, although he readily admits that his performance never matched his enthusiasm! Like all good Aussie lads he also enjoyed surfing and a pint or three on the beach afterwards.
He started helping with the ground and after four years in college studying things like soil science, turf science, pitch construction, biology, pest control and nutrient management he was promoted through the system until he was working hard at the North Sydney Oval.
Travel in Europe pays off
But then he decided to take some time off travelling and met his wife Kathryn in Greece. They were just good pals at first but after several exchange visits between Australia and Pembrokeshire they got married and after two years in Oz moved back here to work. The couple have a daughter Sarah (now 12) and she is a good horse-woman who has qualified to compete in this year’s County Show, and a useful surfer, too.
At first Dan worked with Andrew Barton on landscaping but after a back operation worked as a mechanic until the job came up at the Bridge Meadow and he was invited to take over the reins by David Hughes and Winston Griffiths. He loved it from the start as he enjoyed the company of club secretary Barry Vaughan, manager Deryn Brace and others too many to mention.
At first he found the pitch very heavy in mid-winter but he used plenty of sand alongside hard labour in punching holes to aid drainage and after five years of endeavour he was pleased with the end product. Amazingly, Dan’s major work was in the summer, where he would spend up to 50 hours a week tending his beloved turf and getting it ready for the new season – and correspondingly less in the winter when things just ticked over. At first he had to provide a pitch for around 36 games but by the time he left that had grown to up to 80 matches.
Dan took the Liberty in 2005
Although he loved his involvement at the Bridge Meadow Stadium, Dan moved to the Liberty Stadium in February 2005 so that he could be involved from the very start of the pitch there, having joined Hewitt’s Sport Turf and working for a top man named John Hewitt. Dan had applied for work in Ireland, at the world-famous Croke Park, as far back as 2002 but was abroad and so missed the letter offering him an interview. He wrote to thank the company when he eventually returned and when the Liberty role came up they contacted Dan and he got the job!
Dan told us,
“Originally it was known as the White Rock Stadium before it became the Liberty Stadium and I was there from the outset, involved in pitch construction, irrigation instalment and every other matter relating to the pitch, so I know every inch of it, on top and below the surface. I was lucky to have Dean Gillasbey as my assistant, someone who had been involved at Stradi Park for 13 years and who is now in charge at Parc y Scarlets in Llanelli., because we had a great rapport and shared the same ideas and instincts about what to do.”
Big challenge
“The challenge from the outset was to prepare pitches for both rugby and football since there is a micro-climate inside the stadium where there is little synthetic active radiation (that’s ‘Power Light’ to you beginners!) and is always a couple of degrees colder. It is especially hard when there is a flood of fixtures, as sometimes happens, but I am lucky since Swansea boss Roberto Martinez and is assistant Graham Jones are great and so is Sean Holley and Jonathan Humphreys with the Ospreys. When I ask them to do something to help keep the pitch in good nick they are ready to listen – and other jobs I have to do are re-mark pitches, change the posts and, during half times, fork in divots to keep the playing surface sound.
If there are matches two days in succession, as sometimes happens, we work under the floodlights until the early hours, giving the pitch a once-over with mowers, and then I sleep in my office so that we get a very early start in preparing the pitch next morning. I enjoy the challenges it throws at me and in recent times I have recruited Alan Hobson, from Crundale, to help me out.”
Top grounds visited – and a love of the job
As well as his work at the Liberty Stadium, Dan has also looked at the turf establishment at Wembley Stadium and assisted in the pitch construction at Arsenal’s Emirates Stadium, as well as visiting other clubs like Liverpool, Tottenham Hotspur, West ham, Newcastle and Reading with Hewitt’s so he has built up a useful networking system of other groundsmen to chat to.
Dan was understandably delighted to be informed that he had been nominated for the award relating to the National Championship’s ‘Ground of the Year’ and also for the ‘Turf Professional of the Year’ award that runs alongside it – and, win or lose, it is nice to be the only dual-purpose pitch in the nominations.
“I still love the work, despite the travel and long hours,” says Dan, “and although there is no magical formula for success it has to be linked to hard work. All I would like to do is find a way to cut down the hours it takes to look after a pitch but until that day comes I’ll carry on doing my best at the Liberty Stadium.”
And Dan Duffy will do just that because he is a top man and knows no other way!
