{"id":412965,"date":"2026-04-27T09:10:09","date_gmt":"2026-04-27T09:10:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/412965\/"},"modified":"2026-04-27T09:10:09","modified_gmt":"2026-04-27T09:10:09","slug":"one-weekend-two-games-and-7140-sq-metres-of-grass-a-week-with-the-wembley-ground-staff-wembley-stadium","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/412965\/","title":{"rendered":"One weekend, two games and 7,140 sq metres of grass: a week with the Wembley ground staff | Wembley Stadium"},"content":{"rendered":"

Karl Standley and his assistant Cameron Hutcheon have gathered in their usual spot in the south-west corner of Wembley Stadium<\/a> clutching hot cups of tea. Standley is a coffee devotee but on matchdays, as a nod to his mum who enjoys a brew whatever the temperature, he mixes things up.<\/p>\n

After every kick-off the pair gaze out at 7,140 sq metres of glistening green perfection like lions surveying their savannah. Every thinkable controllable has been controlled and, for a short time at least, the teams \u2013 this time Manchester City and Southampton<\/a> \u2013 have dual custody of the Wembley pitch.<\/p>\n

Standley \u2013 Wembley\u2019s head of grounds and surface transitions \u2013 and his six-strong team are only halfway through a day that began eight hours prior, but the mountain has been scaled.<\/p>\n

The morning played out in front of the peaceful silence of 90,000 unoccupied seats. Dew was brushed from the playing surface. Every blade of ryegrass was then cut lengthways and widthways to its exact 22mm length, team member David Moulds having painstakingly set each mower to the required height. Each in-house sharpened blade is tested on paper strands.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou wouldn\u2019t perform an operation with a Stanley knife,\u201d Standley began. \u201cIt wouldn\u2019t heal. It\u2019s like a surgeon\u2019s scalpel \u2013 we need our blades to be as sharp as possible. A rough cut could attract diseases.\u201d<\/p>\n

Standley spent 90 solitary minutes repainting the pitch lines, with the exception of the east-end penalty spot: that job was entrusted to your correspondent.<\/p>\n

Concurrently, Brendan Abbott and Liddy Ford erected goalposts, with the switch from resting into their position a synchronised acrobatic masterpiece. Abbott, a 17-year Wembley veteran, orchestrated every move. Ford followed his lead. They only joined the team 18 months back but with Standley and Hutcheon\u2019s encouragement, are flourishing and have already led the ground staff during Lionesses games.<\/p>\n

Once every job on the whiteboard had been ticked off, the team gathered to take a breath and eat before entering game mode. Apprentice James Cruz was teased gently for having received a ticking off for overzealously filling his canteen salad box during the week. They are a strong, meticulous unit with an evident closeness and hierarchy only evident when performing duties. Cruz\u2019s later offer to work late, even though it meant missing his last bus home, was swiftly and firmly rejected.<\/p>\n

Wembley\u2019s head of grounds and surface transitions, Karl Standley, briefs the team. Photograph: John Phillips\/The FA\/Getty Images<\/p>\n

Two-hours pre-kick-off, the team\u2019s watering window began. \u201cOne half of the ground is in the baking sun, the other in the shade,\u201d Standley told the Guardian. . \u201cThe east end is windy, the west end dead, so we\u2019re effectively dealing with four pitches.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe discuss them as a team. It\u2019s a case of, \u2018we\u2019ve seen this movie before, this is how it ends\u2019. Our culture is such that, if the team think I\u2019m wrong, they\u2019re in a safe space to tell me. There are a lot of judgment calls that come from experience.\u201d<\/p>\n

Indeed, Standley, Moulds and Abbott have 57 years between them at Wembley alone, with Moulds and Abbott recently celebrating 20-year anniversaries. \u201cWe had expected to be preparing pitches straight away, but the first year ended up being a desk job.\u201d Moulds recalled.<\/p>\n

Moisture readings taken over the previous 48 hours, and data on traction and hardness, were turned into a full report by AI. From that the team concluded that Wembley\u2019s 24 sprinklers would evenly apply 2mm of water before the warm-ups, plus a further millimetre after them and at the break. All is controlled by a programmed radio device in Standley\u2019s possession. \u201cWe could do it using an app,\u201d Hutcheon said, \u201cbut that would leave us liable to hacking.\u201d<\/p>\n

During watering, he and a suited Standley are positioned by the tunnel, offering greetings to players and officials. Each team received prior notice of their designated warm-up areas and are gently reminded. Some adhere strictly to requirements; others take the odd liberty.<\/p>\n

Stakeholders also need managing with broadcasters attempting to negotiate changes to sprinkler schedules to keep their on-air talent dry.<\/p>\n

The players returning to their dressing rooms brings a first divoting opportunity. Often the window is tiny, with finals and internationals bringing pageantry and a military presence. But a semi-final offers a dozen or so minutes for fixing minor blemishes.<\/p>\n

On Saturday, the first peep of Craig Pawson\u2019s whistle was Standley\u2019s cue to return to the groundskeeping corner, uttering the words \u201cblue valve off\u201d into the earpieces of the entire team as he walked. The irrigation system is shut during play.<\/p>\n

It is just one example of an astonishing level of perfectionism. The team talk regularly of the \u201c1%-ers\u201d and no chances are taken. Everything that can be done, is done, on the day and in the buildup.<\/p>\n

The \u201clay and play\u201d pitch hosting the FA Cup<\/a> semi-finals began life in August 2025 at a secret location. In January, it was cut into 700-plus 10m x 1.2m strips and driven overnight to north London. \u201cOur record for an install is two and a half days \u2013 that was between Oasis\u2019s fifth concert and the 2025 Community Shield,\u201d Standley said. It will probably be broken later in 2026.<\/p>\n

Every blade of grass is cut precisely to a 22mm length. Photograph: John Phillips\/The FA\/Getty Images<\/p>\n

Once a pitch has reached its end of life, its approximately 5% plastic content is recycled into benches, key rings, planters and, most recently, LPs gifted to visiting artists as a memento.<\/p>\n

It was an idea the ground staff conjured and enacted themselves, with the first items shaped over a barbecue in Standley\u2019s garden. \u201cI still owe my wife and daughter a baking tin,\u201d he said grinning.<\/p>\n

When we visited on matchday minus two, one of a rotational cast of resident falcons was on duty. An increasingly residential local area has meant birds of prey are released weekly to ward off pigeons.<\/p>\n

On matchday minus one, Abbott and Moulds painstakingly spent four and a half hours aerating the ground with 1.8m holes. Relieving compactions enhances playability.<\/p>\n

As the Saints and Citizens duelled<\/a>, the ground staff had a watching brief, spare corner flags readied in case of incident. Half-time brought another divoting chance, gardening lemmings fetching forks from an immaculately kept cavern.<\/p>\n

Among them were Yousef Shah and Josh Wenham, Saturday being the culmination of a week-long work experience placement via the King\u2019s Trust, a partner of the FA who runs an employability programme for local young adults. Wembley is a place for opportunity. \u201cSomebody took a chance on me once, so it\u2019s important we do the same,\u201d Standley said. Shah walked off, visibly beaming. \u201cTwo weeks ago, I never could have imagined I\u2019d be doing that,\u201d he said. \u201cWow \u2026 so cool.\u201d<\/p>\n

Full time means the team is on again, literally and metaphorically. First, University Campus of Football Business student Dylan Samways led a group pulling orange brushes lengthways. \u201cIt\u2019s called drag brushing. We\u2019re standing the grass back up to remove loose debris.\u201d<\/p>\n

Lewis Arscott, who commutes from Exeter to support matchdays, proudly started the next wave of action \u2013 a quartet of lawnmowers hoovering up the displaced remnants.<\/p>\n

With dark having descended, the final divoting packs form. Simon Rudkins, head of grounds at Lewes FC\u2019s Dripping Pan, and Chris Horsler, who holds the same position at a state school, discussed the merits of a new tool being trialled. It is a horticultural savasana, with soft, merry chatter among the calm.<\/p>\n

Shortly before 10pm, after a concerted effort to push into the evening in order to lighten Sunday\u2019s load, Standley gathers the team. \u201cWe have a rule,\u201d he said. \u201cWhen those two teams arrive tomorrow, they should not be able to tell there was a game today.\u201d It all began again nine hours later.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Karl Standley and his assistant Cameron Hutcheon have gathered in their usual spot in the south-west corner of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":412966,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[85,46,105],"class_list":["post-412965","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-il","tag-israel","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/412965","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=412965"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/412965\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/412966"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=412965"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=412965"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=412965"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}