Over the years we have been "getting personal" with many of the top lads and lasses in the turfcare industry as part of our feature articles, asking them a range of personal questions about themselves and their lifestyles.
One of our favourite questions is "What's the daftest work-related question you have ever been asked?". So, our editorial team have put together their top 20 favourite answers of all time. Here they are:
- The other day, whilst cutting the grass at the training ground, a youth player asked, "What does that machine do?"
- When initially marking out a pitch, I was asked which was the correct measurement for the penalty spot; 36 feet or 12 yards? I tried to explain that both were the same but the guy was having none of it.
- Is the sight screen there to stop the sun going in to your eyes?
- Not a question, as such, but a comment: An apprentice who did work for us cut a fairway left to right instead of right to left - it happens - though his reasoning made our day let alone that year. "Sorry for that, I got my hands mixed up. I thought my right was my left and my left was my right, then I remembered what hand I wrote with and, by then, it was too late." Some things you just can't make up.
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Morning of a county championship match in April, the coach comes out, bends down and puts his hands on the pitch and looks to us; "It's cold isn't it; how come it's so cold?" My boss at the time replied brilliantly; "you'd be effing cold if you'd been left out all night!".
- Can I have some dark and light grass seed to make my grass look like the stripes on your pitch?
- Can we use this big bucket of sawdust to stub out cigarettes? Of course, I said yes and waited to see how long it was until it started smoking.
- The playing surface at Cambridge United was covered in frost and a director asked if it would be worth putting the floodlights on to warm the pitch up.
- "It's taken me twenty minutes to dig my car out from the snow and ice and when I get here the course is closed. Why?"
- Have you painted that green? Or the usual; how do you get the stripes like that?
- What time does the one o'clock game start?
- When I said a patient (in an NHS hospital) had "gone to a better place", the enquirer replied "where, the Nuffield (private hospital)?
- Why can't you put boiling water through the irrigation system to act as underground heating?
- Does the sun always rise there?
- Why don't you mix cement with your woodchip to keep it on the paths!
- Do you work match days and what do you do in the summer when the team is off?
- Do you put sand on the greens just to annoy us golfers?
- Why are the greens slower uphill into the wind?
- While we were turfing, we were asked "can you lay a carpet in my lounge please?"
- Someone pointing to a first xi cricket square in October asked "can I warm up on there?"
So, there are our top 20 favourite answers. If you've ever been asked a daft question, let us know below in our comments section!
