ALLAN Birkett picked up two major awards at the Bradford Premier League’s annual dinner and prize presentation at Headingley.

The Keighley stalwart not only took the Tom Mathers Best Kept Ground Award, but was also named as the league’s Unsung Hero - the second most prestigious trophy presented on the night after the Sir Leonard Hutton Trophy - despite never having rolled a wicket or cut a blade of grass until six years ago.

Upon collecting his awards, Birkett confessed: “The Best Kept Ground Trophy means a hell of a lot to me - not just for myself but for my son Dillon and our little team that helps us.

“I have put a lot of hours in, and so has Dillon, doing the ground - and they are through the day, out of hours.

“I got a new knee put in in March and we have had to work hard.

“I wasn’t expecting the Unsung Hero - I don’t do it for that. I do it because the club needs me - and there are a lot of people like myself within the league who do exactly what I do.

“If we don’t do what we do - and it is not just Keighley in that position - then a lot of clubs would fold.

“I started on the ground roughly about five or six years ago. I had never marked a pitch out or cut a blade of grass. I just turned up one day because we had no groundsman and I had to learn on the job.

“Terry Jamieson Page had done a brilliant job before me as groundsman, but I have known Terry and Robbo (former Keighley player Richard Robinson) and you can call on these people.

“If you have friends in places you can learn very quickly - and you have to learn quickly because it is a stats game and you have to learn.

“The ground is now a paradise and I pride myself on that. It is all about making the right changes at the right time, such as rolling it at the right time.

“It takes countless hours and a lot of cricketers don’t understand that and don’t appreciate what people like me do, and that is not just blowing smoke. It is about preparing the best, and if you have pride in what you do you will provide the best.

“On average, I will look the night before a weekend game on two or three different weather apps and you get a good inkling about whether it is going to rain, and if that is the case you will go down and roll from 5am to 5.30am first light on and off until 7am on Saturday and you will have sheets or covers on a couple of pitches and you will push them off.

“If you think that it is going to rain then the sheets or covers then go back on.

“The end-of-season work is done, although I went to Ibiza for my wife’s 50th, and while we were there there was torrential rain back home so we had a lot of wash-off and came back and did a bit more work.

“I had Robbo and Hodgy (Dave Hodgson) over with a couple of machines and we got it back to somewhere where it needed to be."