Steve Britt – 2008 Scotts Australia Greenkeeper of the Year Award

Steve Britt
Valentine Bowling Club

Steve left Whitebridge High in mid November 1974 after completing 4th form and the school certificate to walk into the plumbing trade following his father and elder brother. After 4 weeks in this job he had crawled under houses with snakes and rats, had blisters on blisters from digging holes and lost his lunch 3 or 4 times at the sight of some of the things his dad pulled out of sewer pipes. He surrendered and went to Centrelink or the CES as it was called then to apply for the dole. While being interviewed at the CES he was asked the result of his vocational guidance test from 3rd form. These results indicated that with his scholastic ability he would be best suited pursuing a career in refrigeration mechanics, fire brigade or greenkeeping. On telling him this he walked to his filing cabinet pulled out a piece of paper and said take this down the road to Charlestown Bowling Club where they are looking for a person to do 2 weeks casual while their apprentice goes on leave. As it worked out the apprentice at Charlestown was Graham Harvey who himself and family were good friends of Steve’s family. On 2 January 1975 he commenced two weeks casual and really enjoyed it. A month later Graham rang Steve to say he was out of his time and leaving to take up the position of head greenkeeper at Valentine Bowling Club and that Charlestown would like Steve to replace him as apprentice.

He started his apprenticeship in March 1975 under the watchful eye of head greenkeeper Morry Tobias. In these four years he was involved in rebuilding and redraining 2 greens that had problems with a wide variety of diseases and insects and installed one of the first tiffs in the Newcastle area (which in his words was a disaster).

He started TAFE in 1976 at Tighes Hill and completed in 1977 gaining runner up to Apprentice of the Year behind Brad Morgan.

The club not only has the Greenkeeper of Year; they also have received 100 litres of liquid fertilizer as part of the Scotts Australia award for use at the club. The Club, Steve and the Association are thankful to Scotts for this award.

In Steve’s words:

In March 1979 Morry resigned and the club invested me with the head greenkeeper’s job at the age of 20.The next three years at Charlestown was very hard learning from my mistakes and dealing with managers and directors at one of Newcastle’s prestige clubs at the time. One of the hardest things was never losing the tag of being the boy. In March 1982 the morning after attending a board meeting where the manager and president tore strips off me for not using the BIG ROLLER enough, going home 7 minutes early on Thursday 3 weeks ago and not sweeping the shed floor enough. I again received a phone call from Graham Harvey. He told me he was leaving Valentine Bowling Club to take up a job in the mines and that the club would like to talk to me. Valentine Bowling Club was well known to me as my grandparents were foundation members, my pop was treasurer at one time and I used to help Graham with his renovations.

I accepted a job offer from the club that day and had great pleasure in walking into the manager’s office at Charlestown and telling him what to do with his BIG ROLLER and club.

I started at Valentine on 23 March 1982. Since then I have regrassed both greens twice, installed new ditches and because of its location (which has Shepherds Creek on one side and Lake Macquarie on the other) I designed and installed a recycling system which catches all water from the green’s drainage system and pumps it back into tanks beside my shed. I did this to make sure there was no danger of polluting the lake from runoff.

The club and I have enjoyed a harmonious relationship over the years which I think is very important, it helps to keep you motivated and always striving for the best.