The ground-boys of yore who cared for school and club playing fields

by H.M. Nissanka Warakaulla

In the good old days we had ground-boys who attended to the maintenance of the playgrounds. In fact, they used to do everything connected with the sports activities of the school or club where they were employed. And they did their jobs well without much supervision. Almost all of them looked after the playing fields and the various sports gear of the college or club as if they were their own.

I will start with the ground-boy at my alma mater, Kingswood College, Kandy. He was Viyay and he was the brother-in-law of the school watcher, Hendrick, who was married to Viyay’s sister. Vijay would have got his job because of this connection as Hendrick was a very honest and diligent worker who looked after the school single-handed during vacations as well as after school ended till it opened the next morning.

Vijay took over the job of ground-boy and gradually did almost everything connected to the playground as well as the sports equipment. The cricket pitch was a matting wicket. The matting had to be taken from the pavilion by wheelbarrow and laid on the pitch and nailed on the sides. The transporting of the matting up and down was done most of the time with the help of schoolboy sportsmen.

His versatility was apparent when he by himself marked the ground for hockey matches, then football and also the lanes for the races at the athletics meet. In addition to all this he used to season the cricket bats applying linseed oil and then hitting a cricket ball in a sock hung by a rope from the roof. He also used to bind the bats when they gave way in certain places. Vijay used to accompany the teams for matches with the sports gear in a bag. On top of all this, he used to mow the grass in the two pitches at college.

I am not aware of the ground-boys of other schools in Kandy at that time except the famous Marthelis of the Asgirya grounds of Trinity College. He was in charge of maintaining a turf wicket. Just like Vijay, Marthelis too used to attend to all the work at the Asgiriya grounds.

The universities too had ground-boys to look after their playgrounds. Peradeniya had Samarakoon who handled the cricket pitch of the circular cricket ground. This had a turf wicket, which however had to be abandoned and a matting laid when matches were played.

The University of Colombo too had a ground-boy in overall charge of the playground with others to assist him. They too had to get the grounds ready for cricket, football, hockey and athletics.

All clubs in Colombo had ground-boys. I remember only one of them, that is Deen of the Bloomfield Club. I came to know him as a result of my association with the University of Colombo where I became Registrar. When the Faculty of Arts was to be constructed, I went round to inspect the land that would be required for the purpose.

I found a wattle and daub hut within the area. On inquiring about its occupant, I was told that it was Deen, the ground-boy of Bloomfield Club. They had the brass to construct this shed on the other side of the road in someone else’s property!

I told Deen that the following day a bulldozer is scheduled to come and demolish the shed and asked him to take his belongings and leave. The President of the club at that time came and met me and said the club had no funds to construct a shed and for the university to do so using old, discarded material. This was done and Deen shifted. I know Deen used to do a very good job of maintaining the Bloomfield playground.

All the other clubs too had ground-boys who were devoted to the club and looked after the playgrounds well. As the clubs played many games the ground-boys had to be fully conversant with what had to be done.

When Don Bradman’s team stopped in Colombo on their way to England in 1948, they were surprised to see two women attending to marking the pitch for the match. At that time it was only in Sri Lanka that there were grounds women caring for playgrounds.