By Rosie Pry
Lord’s first female ground officer in the 211 -year history of Lord’s Cricket Ground is determined that it will not be the last one.
Meg Lay, 28 -year -old, grew up on a single -way ticket without a career plan before he came to Bristol three years ago.
After hearing from his roommates who were professional cricketists, Gloucestershire County Cricket Club took a short time for the ground staff, Lay sent them with an armed hand with an armed hand with the agricultural experience and growth.
In the beginning of 2024, he spent several years in Bristol -based club before he gave a concert to Lord’s.
With a large part of sports lawn experts due to retirement and an industry that needs more assistance, Lay wants to encourage the young generation to participate.
“People think that there are only grumpy -old men who do this job, and that’s not,” he said.
“Since it is a serious aging industry, we need young people and we need more people with an increase in women’s sport because the floor team is used twice as much and we need more staff to cope with it.
Orum I don’t want women’s sport to suffer because our industry cannot continue.
“Because there will be a painful woman’s game, there would be no painful men’s teams.”
Lay has created more than 17,000 impressive follow -ups on Instagram and more than 15,000 in Tiktok, and believes that social media is the main way to attract young people into the sector.
“Young generation of social media and most of our sector is not at all, so we need to do this because people learn that like this,” he said.
“I think we need more athlete approval because we’re doing it for athletes.
“If you tell a 15-year-old girl that she can prepare a step for Leah Williamson-this is an eye-catching.”
As for how to enter the sector, Lay added: “There are very different ways.
“You can always take a university route and get a degree of land or biology that will be very valuable, but you can go to your local club or volunteer or send E -mail to a stadium and ask for a match day experience.
“The problem is that people do not send these e -mails enough.
“I spent a few years on the Grounds team in Bristol, there was no qualities or anything else, and then this experience took me the Lord’s concert.”
However, every day, even though it is to work with a tightly connected team in the fresh air, it is what Lay always dreamed of, as an old athlete, very few admits that very few people often appreciate the care and maintenance of high -level sports fields.
Um I knew about agriculture and I understood this understanding of farming and cricket and sport well, but I never realized how much effort he made on sports grass, ”he said.
“I had no idea, and I thought it was just a matter of cutting the grass.
“There are ten full -time people on the Lord’s on the Grounds, how can you have enough work for ten people?
“How much he gets involved and how much information he gets to me was a real shock.
“Especially as an athlete because I didn’t know or care about the fields I played until they started working on them.”
For the Big Cricket fan, Lay found it as everything he might want.
“I just asked for a job to buy a jack, and now it is literally my job,” he said.
“The best thing is beautiful, sunny on a sunny day, and then I am leaning back with my friends and watching crickets.”
Now Lay has worked in the role for a few years, and he can’t dream of doing something different as a career.
“There’s nothing else to do,” he said.
“I didn’t have a single bad day.
“I don’t know where to be or what role I will be, but I will always be on the sport lawn in some way or form.”
