Our Head of Grounds, John Lawrence, has been featured in Birmingham Living’s latest ‘Up Close With…’ feature for their magazine. This feature allows the reader to delve into the busy month John and his team have in store as they get the grass courts ready for the top tennis stars. Read below for a snippet of the article:
Been There, Done That
I began working at the Nottingham Tennis Centre, initially as a casual member of staff. That got my foot in the door, and then I had the chance to do some grounds work in my first summer during the Nottingham Open tennis event. Aged 24 I made the move to Birmingham to take up the role of assistant grounds manager at Edgbaston Priory Club. I held that role for nearly 10 years before becoming head of grounds at the start of 2024.
It’s What I Do
I lead the grounds team that looks after the 14-acre site that makes up Edgbaston Priory Club. We have 32 tennis courts of varying surfaces, as well as large areas of managed lawns, shrub beds and borders, hedges, trees and seasonal flower displays, all of which falls under the remit of our grounds team. June is probably the busiest period, when we host the Rothesay Birmingham Classic Tennis event on our grass courts. Preparation goes on all year but it’s not unusual for our team to work 100-hour weeks for at least a month around the event.
To read the full article, please click the button below: