ELITE SPORT
St James’ Park set up for Premier League football…
SPECIAL REPORT
CHANGING PLACES The expertise of the facilities and grounds teams at St James’ Park will be tested to the limit this month as it prepares to host two major rugby league finals in 24 hours, less than a week after the club’s final Premier League home game of the season
A By Colin Hoskins Features editor
tried-and-tested pitch preparation routine will, says Eddie Rutherford, ensure that every player at ‘Europe’s festival of world-class rugby’ enjoys a superb playing surface when Newcastle United FC’s St James’ Park stadium hosts the finals for the European Rugby Challenge Cup and the European Rugby Champions
Heineken Cup this month, just a few days after the club’s final Premier League home game of the season. As head of facilities management, Eddie, along with the stadium’s head groundsman, Andy Tully, will instigate a well-proven pitch management regime, ‘converting’ the playing surface from hosting football to best-in-class rugby union games in less than a week.
HISTORIC MULTI-USE Home to Newcastle United FC, St James’ Park Stadium has been used for football since 1880 (12 years before NUFC was officially formed). It has also hosted Olympic football (2012), has been the venue for the rugby league Super League Magic Weekends in 2015, 2016, 2017 and 2018, and staged 2015 rugby union Rugby World Cup games. It has hosted an England Test match and regularly accommodates charity football events and music concerts, as well as being used as a set for film and reality television.
18 THE GROUNDSMAN May 2019