Sport
29 December, 2022
Kevin Koop celebrates 50 years at Brook
For Kevin Koop, 2022 is no different to any other year curating the pitch at Carisbrook, but it also represents 50 consecutive years of doing a job he enjoys. Koop’s lifelong obsession with pitch curation has recently seen him earn an award from...
For Kevin Koop, 2022 is no different to any other year curating the pitch at Carisbrook, but it also represents 50 consecutive years of doing a job he enjoys.
Koop’s lifelong obsession with pitch curation has recently seen him earn an award from Cricket Victoria for 50 years of service to the game, which included an invitation to attend day three of the Boxing Day Test match between Australia and South Africa at the MCG, which saw him honoured at a lunchtime event.
An intrigued Koop wanted to learn the art as an 18-year-old, and a 50-year story began from there in 1972.
“I had a fascination for curating a pitch, how it was done and what the deal was,” he explains.
“Back in the day, Alby Newman and Wally Barker, we used to pull the roller (to curate the pitch) up and down. We had the exact same roller, but no concrete in it, we’d just pull it up and down to create a wicket. But I knew there was more to it than that. So, I went to see Kenny Gibbs, who used to curate the wicket at Princes Park, and he gave me a few tips and away we went from there. Along came George Skinner, the best cricketer in town, and Ron Giles, who was into hydraulics, so we turned the old roller into a motorised roller with hydraulics and we thought it was Christmas. We didn’t have to pull a roller anymore.”
Koop says that in his 50 years of curating the pitch at Carisbrook Recreation Reserve, there’s been plenty of changes which he has had to adapt to in order to help keep the cricket club running, while also discussing the tricks of the trade that he’s learned to keep the pitch an even one between batsmen and bowlers.
“There’s been a lot of changes. You can get the roll-out turf now with plenty of bare patches, you can poke it in and it’s so much better than trying to sprig it — that’s what we used to do in the older days, getting it out with a crowbar and putting in little runners, but now you go buy a slab of grass, put it on and squash it in. The fertilisers are also a lot better now and you can get your styles right with the soil test. We never used to do soil tests back in the old days.” he said.
“I always try to make it an even playing field for the batsman and the bowler. I’ve never really had a cracking batsmen wicket here, with the different types of couches we put in. We have the South African couch grass, which is the finer type, so the ball acts like a tennis ball, it doesn’t come through on the bat, so it gives a bit for the bowler, but once you get used to it as a batsman, it offers you a bit there as well. There’s no other pitch like it in the association to me. Dunolly have a bit of the South African couch. There’s another that has Santa Ana couch, which plays completely different — it allows the ball to come onto the bat more. There’s all these little tricks that you have to come up with, when you cover up the pitch, the Bureau of Meteorology website is my favourite — I’m checking it every day.”
Koop’s dedication to pitch curation is admirable, to say the very least, with the demanding job taking hours of dedication throughout all hours of the day.
“I would probably spend at least two hours here of a night, and around half an hour on the morning of a game, just to see if everything is alright, before I get to go do my other jobs. Each night, there’s always something to do, be it fertilising, watering or mowing," he said.
“The only thing is I wish I was able to get an apprentice and be able to train them up. But there’s not too many of them around.”
In 2022, Koop has had to navigate the heavy October rains when trying to develop a pitch that would be fair for Carisbrook and opposition teams. However, while this year has been a challenge, due to the amount of work needed after a gruelling football season, it still doesn’t compare to when drought gutted the region.
“This year has probably been one of the biggest challenges as far as the football season and the rain. It meant that there was a lot of extra work to be put in with cross-rolling and filling in the holes, football stops holes at all that, but aerating the wicket does it a lot of good in a one-way. Everybody thinks it’s no good for footy, but it does do the cricket pitch a lot of good to be aerated,” he said.
“Drought was the hardest time though, and it’s the worst. When we went through the droughts water-wise in terms of trying to get it, we were really lucky getting tanks from the council, who would come along and fill the tanks to keep the wickets going in those last two drought-years, which was really helpful.”
Throughout the formative years of Koop’s time as a curator, he was also a very talented cricketer, and has taken on additional roles in the club committee, including acting as president, secretary and treasurer at the club. Koop has filled in just about every conceivable role at the Carisbrook Cricket Club.
So, naturally, Koop would have a handful of stories to tell about his time in cricket, and with his beloved Carisbrook.
“One story that really sticks in my mind was playing in a grand final, and George Skinner was the quickest and fastest bowler in the association. Nev Dooley, playing for MKM, came out to the crease — we were in front at the time, and they had to make 80-90 runs or something. Nev got hit in the head with no helmets in those days, he was bleeding from everywhere. But he stuck it out and made those 80 or 90 runs and won the final. That’s the biggest and most courageous thing I’ve ever seen on a field,” he said.
However, what keeps Koop going is the prospect of young talents continuing the legacy of the Carisbrook Cricket Club.
“For me, being here is just the love of the sport, the ability to see the young kids coming on and playing the game of cricket, which to me, is better than seeing them sitting at home playing on the computers,” he said.
“The club has been really great. We haven’t won too many premierships — we did win one last year — but the club has always been competitive. We have a good relationship with the football club and council.”
As for the future, cricket doesn’t stop for Kevin Koop.
“I definitely won’t be stopping at 50 years, I’ll be keeping on going. What do they say — ‘shop till they drop’? I’ll be cricketing till I drop,” he said. “I also try and help out as much as I can with umpiring. I don’t do it every week, but 90 percent of the time, I will give them a chop out.”