40 years as groundsman: An interview with John West

Last summer, the eir Sport channel broadcast a documentary - ‘Humans of the LOI’ – which profiled some of the people who give their time and effort to help keep Irish soccer clubs afloat.

The film focused on the kit man at Cork City, the programme seller at St Pat’s, and the ladies making soup at Finn Harps. In doing so, it underlined how the work done behind the scenes is as much a part of what makes a club tick as the players or fans.

Since the late 1970s, one of Athlone Town FC’s unsung heroes has been its groundsman, John West. This year John reached the special milestone of 40 years looking after the club’s pitches at St Mel’s Park and Lissywollen.

He has done the groundwork, literally, to prepare for some of the biggest games in the club’s history. From the glory days of league success and European action to struggles at the wrong end of the First Division, John has been there through it all and at present he maintains the club’s ground on a voluntary basis.

A modest and unassuming man, he has never sought the limelight but last week agreed to meet up for a chat about his role as groundsman which has been continuous since 1977, with the exception of two years spent in England from 1986 to 1988.

One of the things that becomes apparent when talking to John is that he doesn’t have a bad thing to say about anybody.

"I never had any issue with anyone. All that I have in football, to be honest with you, is good friends. I have no enemies," he says.

"Even if a guy came to Athlone now and I hadn’t seen him in 20 years I’d meet him and greet him and have a cup of tea with him. That’s the way it’s done for me. I never had any problems with players or committees or anything. I get on well with the boys (at the club now) regardless of what anyone says."

He smiles in recalling how the late Breffni Rowan once asked him a question and, after receiving a non-committal answer, joked that John would make a good politician.

This is evident when I ask about his favourite players at the club over the years and he says he doesn't want to name names in case someone he leaves out is offended.

He concedes that Turlough O'Connor was probably Athlone Town's best manager because of what he achieved at the club, and makes special mention of former player and manager Jackie Quinn, who died in 2015.

"You wouldn’t meet a nicer man than Jackie. That’s a guy I would like to give a mention to," he says.

"He was a great friend of mine, and there was no more knowledgeable man about football than Jackie Quinn. He was a man I really admired. Himself and Turlough O’Connor were just made to be managers."

A Cornamaddy resident, John was always interested in sport. In his youth, he was a boxer with Athlone Boxing Club and won a Westmeath-Longford championship. He also played football as a winger with the Wanderers team, which was a forerunner of Melville United FC.

When he succeeded Hugh O'Neill as groundsman at St Mel's Park there was no machinery and the pitch was still being rolled by pony-driven rollers.

"When I went in that started to change, around '77 or '78. You had to try to get better, because the team was getting better and everything was getting better. They got a tractor in and that started it off.

"I was getting the same wages as you’d get for shift work at Gentex (factory) at the time, but you’d have to work on a Sunday. I worked seven days a week – most days I would work.

"I used to have the pitch nearly ready on a Friday (before a game on Sunday) but then if you got a wet Saturday you’d be in there trying to keep control over it. The priority was to get the game on, because there was thousands of people coming.

"We lived in Cornamaddy and my father used to have to park where the Regional Sports Centre is now and he’d have the wellingtons on him and would tip across the fields (to St Mel’s) because you wouldn’t get in near Sarsfields or the Fairgreen with the traffic. There were great crowds (at the games)."

John "drank out of every cup" won by Athlone Town during the early 1980s, when two league titles, three league cups, a league of Ireland 'B' division title and an FAI Youth Cup were secured.

St Mel's Park wasn't known for modern facilities but he was fond of the pitch itself.

"The railway side of it at that time was all cinders – leftovers – from coal. That was the drainage system on the railway side and there was mighty drainage in it. I built in a few short pipes in the system as well.

"There were about four areas of the pitch that used to flood. If there was a match tomorrow and it was raining today, I’d usually fork (those areas) for hours so that it would open it up and take the rain when it falls."

At the time the League of Ireland season was in 'winter football' mode and maintaining the pitch was always a challenge: "You could spend all of the summer trying to get the pitch right, and then one game in September could destroy it!"

Although the work wasn't easy, John was happy doing it and that's why he stuck with it over the years. "You wouldn’t have stayed there (if you weren’t happy) because it was tough work," he says.

He had "mixed emotions" when St Mel's Park closed for good at the end of 2006. "I miss the people there," he says, and points out that local residents would often help clean up the ground after a game, especially in the 1980s.

"The Mel’s people nearly felt it was their ground. I could put the nets up at the start of the season and I might not take them down again until the end of the season, but they’d never be touched. No vandalism or anything like that.

"There were a few guys we’d let into the games for nothing and it would be their day out. And if they saw anything around them that was wrong they’d (step in) and say
 'we’re not allowing that here'. They were good, decent people."

The club has now been based in Lissywollen for twelve years and there was a major change recently when it switched to an all-weather playing pitch. While this has "taken a lot of the pressure off", John says the surface still needs to be maintained and has to be brushed after every 30 hours of football.

Outside of the club, John previously did some work on Athlone GAA club's pitch at Páirc Chiaráin and would also help out with pitches at Athlone IT and elsewhere. He loves to watch all sports, particularly football, rugby, gaelic games, and boxing.

Athlone Town made him a presentation this year to mark his four decades of service, but he plans to continue helping out as groundsman. 

"It is something I would miss if I was to walk away from it at this moment," he says.

One of the most satisfying aspects of his work over the years was when he would overcome bad weather conditions and succeed in getting a game played.

"If you had a wet week at Mel’s you’d struggle, but you’d get the game on. The supporters knew that, and they’d come up to you and say ‘well done’.

"In any job, it’s nice at the end of the day if a guy comes to you and says well done. It really means a lot. I worked on pride, and if something was good today I would always try to make it better tomorrow," he concludes.