Cricket stalwart Mark has grounds for pride after 40 years' work

The 56-year-old was presented with a plaque at a small, socially-distanced gathering, acknowledging four decades of preparing pitches at the old Central Ground and Horntye Park.

Mark started as a 16-year-old apprentice at the Central Ground in May 1980, earning £35 per week– and admits he stumbled into the role, saying it wasn’t a career he planned.

He said: “It happened by chance, I had no real interest in it at all. I did try gardening with the borough council. I was second choice, but the other fellow barely lasted a week. I had no real ambition to do the job.”

Mark, brought up in Ealing before moving to Hastings aged 12 in the hot summer of 1976, admits the early days in the job were particularly testing.

He continued: “It was difficult to say the least. The fellow I worked under was a tough one and because of the number of games that used to be played, it was a more hectic season.

“It was a bit of a baptism of fire. I toughed it out then and you get accustomed to it. I managed to see it out and just kept ploughing on.”

Mark says the initial challenges were compounded by a lack of machinery – it would take the best part of a day just to mow the outfield.

But with Sussex County Cricket Club playing at the Central Ground just about every summer, working there provided Mark with some happy memories.

He recalls England great Derek Underwood scoring his maiden century as a nightwatchman in a Sussex-Kent game, seeing Sri Lanka during their early days as a Test-playing nation and a formidable Middlesex - his home county - coming to town in 1989.

That Middlesex team included former England stars John Emburey, Mike Gatting and Phil Tufnell, as well as top-class West Indies batsman Desmond Haynes, who Mark says ‘gave everyone the time of day’.

Those days sadly passed, however, as the Central Ground closed to make way for the construction of Priory Meadow Shopping Centre and a new cricket facility was created at Horntye Park in the early to mid-1990s.

Mark says the move to Horntye meant working with slightly more up-to-date machinery on a new square at a venue with far better drainage than the Central Ground, which was prone to waterlogging.

Although there have been some second-team fixtures, Sussex first-team matches were far less frequent at the new ground.

Zimbabwe visited for a one-day tour match in 2000, there was a one-day game against Kent in 2001 and a further one-day clash against Essex in 2008, though that was abandoned in the rain.