The awards and honours keep coming for Worcestershire on and off the pitch – with head groundsman Tim Packwood and his team the latest winners.
Tim and his hard-working staff last night received a major honour at the Institute of Groundsmanship (IOG) awards held at Stadium MK – the home of Milton Keynes Dons.
They were voted the winners of the Professional Cricket Grounds Team Of The Year award beating off the challenge of the other nominations from Warwickshire and Derbyshire.
The IOG, on their website, write: "The Worcestershire CCC grounds team performed heroics earlier in the year in re-establishing the New Road square back to first-class standard after suffering weeks of flooding, with the pitch under several feet of water at times.
"Headed by Tim Packwood – who this year is celebrating 25 years at the ground – the team brought the pitch back to life and successfully staged County and T20 games, the Royal London 50 over competition as well as England Lions fixtures."
The other members of the county groundstaff are Luke Weston, Martin Watts, Ash Hill, Arthur Jones and Steve Gravenall.
It was a fitting way for Tim to celebrate 25 years at New Road since first joining the staff as an assistant groundsperson while Martin has been part of the team for 35 seasons.
They have all played their part in what has been another challenging year after another winter of substantial floods.
The square was under 10 feet of water just eight weeks before the start of the 2014 campaign and contingency plans were put in place to move the opening fixtures to Kidderminster.
But Tim and his staff worked tirelessly to ensure play got underway as scheduled at New Road in mid April.
And the wickets and outfield came in for praise from various quarters throughout the summer as Worcestershire sealed promotion back to Division One of the LV = County Championship.
With the county also scooping the major County Recognition Award at the ECB Business of Cricket Awards and the NatWest T20 Blast matchday experience at New Road voted amongst the best in the country, it shows everyone is heading in the right direction on and off the pitch.
