We can learn a lot from the Premiership’s problems
A BBC2 program “Lord Sugar Tackles Football”, exposed the failures in the English Football Premiership. In a nutshell the program argued that although the creation of the super league of top clubs had resulted in the generation of vast sums of money for football, the overall result has been to create a mountain of debt and indebtedness.
Lord Sugar’s conclusion was that something had to be done about player salaries to stop the rot and that the Premiership should allow one or two high profile clubs to go under to illustrate the dire nature of the situation to the Saturday afternoon faithful, who, after all, actually supply the vast sums of cash being dished out to the top talent.
What on earth has this got to do with your bowling club?
Well although not directly linked (unless of course a Premiership failure would free up some punters to come along to your club next Saturday!) the action required to start the turn around of the premiership’s fortunes is very much the same as that required to turnaround bowling clubs.
Now I know that there aren’t any bowlers, professional or otherwise earning £20,000 a week, but Read more
Recent summers have seen a lot of greens devastated by Localised Dry Patch a disorder that is rapidly becoming the scourge of Bowling Green Maintenance Specialists and Club Greenkeepers a like.
I make no apology for writing about this once again, because in my opinion this issue has the ability to accelerate the decline of many already shaky clubs.
It is also clear that there is a deep misunderstanding of the issue across the bowling community…how do I know this?
Well, on several occasions over the last week I have been confronted with some of the worst examples of Localised Dry Patch I have seen in 30 years; in some cases there is virtually no grass cover left and the green surfaces are unlikely to hold together until the end of the season, but…
Despite that, I am still coming up against two of the most mind boggling situations time after time:
The first is when I am actually demonstrating Localised Dry Patch in action by removing soil samples from affected greens and showing committee members powder dry soil/sand; and they insist that they think the green needs a good top-dressing!
The second is when I get a phone call or email from a club with the same severe LDP problems who have had a recommendation from an “expert” that they need to top-dress their green to over come the problem.
Listen folks; I know this is turning into a bit of a rant but here are a few bullet points that you must remember if your green and maybe even your club is going to survive:
Localised Dry Patch (LDP) is a soil disorder not a disease so it can’t be reversed over-night by any quick fix method regardless of how convincing the salesman is!
LDP has the capability to ruin your green beyond economical repair.
LDP is so common because clubs have habitually thrown tonnes of sand based top-dressings at their greens for decades; the tipping point has been reached, many clubs are now trying to produce bowling surfaces with limited budgets on very high sand content soils; it can’t be done!
More sand will only make the problems worse not better.
So what can be done?
Well currently if your green is affected even mildly by LDP and you are in the process of thinking about an autumn program that includes top-dressing with several tonnes of high sand content top-dressing you are not only damaging your green, but you are also wasting hundreds of pounds.
My eBook Performance Bowling Greens, a practical guide costs less than a bag of fertiliser, so do your green a favour and just buy a copy…its peanuts compared to what you are about to do otherwise.
In the book there is a clear plan for getting over LDP and moving your green to a consistently high performance surface.
You will save a lot of cash by taking a more natural, less abusive approach to green maintenance.
The savings you make could be what saves your club from going under and your green will be on the road to recovery and consistent high performance into the bargain.
If you decide to ignore this, then please take away one message “Stop Dressing”
Rootbreak is a common feature on greens where thatch is out of control
As bowling green maintenance specialists we get lots of questions every week about thatch. So here is a quick crash course on it; what it is, what it does and how to deal with it:
What is it?
Thatch is the name given to the mat of dead roots and shoots that accumulates on the surface of the green. Where moisture, nutrition and cultural practices are optimised for the desired grasses, thatch rarely becomes a problem. However, when soil air content is low, or if drainage is poor and the fertiliser program is not Read more
I had an interesting conversation with a bowling club official last night that focussed mainly, not on the green for a change, but the club turnaround process that she hopes to take her club through starting soon. Yesterdays post of course, emphasised the urgency of getting started on any project of this nature in the middle of the bowling season; so it was quite fortuitous that this was fresh in my mind, because she asked me a direct question which went some thing like this:
“John. If you were to lead the turnaround of my club, what would you do first and then how would the project pan out after that?”
She was looking for a step by step plan of course that she could apply to her situation.
My answer was emphatic, clear…and mercenary:
Step 1: buy my eBook: Bowling Club Survival and Turnaround; its under a tenner if you are a member of the Bowls Club Mastermind Network and it spells out in 7 easy steps what to do and exactly how to do it.
I was then slightly embarrassed when she said she already had the eBook and that she had read it cover to cover, several times and had made copious notes and was absolutely 100% convinced that it contained the answer to her club’s problems.
The trouble is that she is still having trouble getting what she called “buy in” from the rest of the committee of the club.
“They just can’t accept that decades of slippage, accompanied by the most unpredictable recession in a century, the smoking ban, the cost of living, the general reduction in interest in bowling etc etc could possibly be turned around, let alone by some eBook or other!”
BINGO! I said, that’s it! They are absolutely correct; it can’t be!
Confused looks ensued!
You see my eBook is a series of thoughts, of ideas, of recommendations of which I am convinced, but an eBook alone cannot possibly help your club to get out of its current mess and secure a bright future.
So Step 3 is to implement what you have read in the eBook and that means ACTION!
Step 2 by the way, in case you are wondering, is NOT to tell anyone that you have a new eBook by some geezer on the internet that is going to work miracles for the club!
And that is because it is the enthusiasm of a leader like you; a leader who steps up in a time of crisis, a leader armed with the correct plan and convinced that success is only a bit of blood, sweat and tears away that turns clubs around.
Those of you who are working through my Bowling Club Survival and Turnaround eBook will know that I am a stickler for working to a plan and within that “ALWAYS” working on the top 3 issues that will move us closer to our goals.
Some readers have had a bit of difficulty getting traction with their turnaround plans through one problem or another; almost exclusively linked to apathy or inertia within the club or committee, a reluctance to get moving on big change.
For those of you in this category, who feel like they are trying to push water uphill, here is a little system you can use to organise your thoughts and maybe encourage those around you to engage with the plan a little more readily. Its really just about asking 4 simple questions:
What went well last year?
You can easily apply this question to your club situation and come up with
