Fake Grass, Real Damage | Plus: The Untold Story of Running Loftus Versfeld

Standing in a stadium like Loftus, you feel everything. The noise, the anthem, the moment. But what you don't see is everything it takes to make that moment happen. 50,000 people, one stadium, and a whole operation working behind the scenes to get it right. This is The Long Way to the Game, only on Megaphone Rugby.

Welcome back to The Long Way to the Game. And as usual, we have a very interesting guest lined up. Not a parent this time, but Hijo Kem, the Loftus Operations Manager. So there we go. Is it Loftus Operations Manager or Blue Bulls Operations Manager?

Who do you actually work for, Hijo? Thank you very much, guys. I work for the Blue Bulls company, but we obviously got a lease, a 99-year lease, from the rugby union on the stadium. So we run Loftus-Fatfield Stadium. So I think I'm more involved with the stadium than with the team.

So yeah, I'm the Loftus Stadium operations manager, but I work for the Brewers company. Hey, Huku. I'm really excited to talk to you today. I said to Envia, it may kind of make me the ultimate rugby nerd, but I'm really dying to kind of find out what happens behind the scenes with everything at Loftus to make for the game day experience that we just kind of show up for and take for granted. So thank you very much for coming on.

I want to start by just asking you, how long have you been with the Bulls in this job? And then secondly, could you just give us a little bit of an overview of kind of the big chunks of things that are part of your job that you wake up thinking about every day? I've been involved with the stadium and the bulls for 28 years now um the job i started as the stadium manager which later evolved to the event manager and i became the operations manager just more or less before the soccer world cup um so the job you know has evolved a lot i think that's the nice thing about sport it's never the same you know um people ask how can you be at one one job for 28 years but but the evolving industry we are in, I mean, I think of highlights like Soccer World Cup. We've done the presidential inauguration here, which is so totally out of, you know, not sport. And then obviously the different competitions.

And even now with SA Rugby taking part in Europe and not against Australia and New Zealand in Super Rugby anymore, that's this new challenges, new changes. The whole demographic of sport or rugby has changed. In the soccer, for example, you know, when I started, we really tried hard to get soccer become part of loftus and when soccer became part and parcel of what we offer here we start let's look at multi-functional sports events and other events like music concerts cultural events uh you know so so we've changed a lot and now actually and we'll get to that later at the grass we're moving away from concerts and we're focusing on rugby and and soccer and that being our core business um you know normally sundowns are playing yet and they're also shareholders in the blue wheels company which a lot of people don't know not really normally sunhouse but african rainbow capital which owns sundowns has also shared the blue bulls company yeah so my day to day and my in my weekend i always say i can basically divide my job into two different areas the day-to-day is the boring part um security cleaning it the maintenance of field the maintenance of the facility electric plumbing so all those facets fall under my responsibility. And obviously our stadium is quite old, so there's a lot of work that needs to be done on the stadium. And then when there's an event, whether it's rugby or soccer or a music concert, I coordinate the event from the Blue Bulls company side.

And that's the exciting part. It's also a difficult part, but, you know, I've never come to a rugby match on a Saturday morning and feel like I'm coming to work. It's a pleasure being involved. And obviously, like I said, not one event is the same as the previous one. there are advantages.

The fact that I've been here for 28 years makes, that experience helps a lot, especially with crisis management. Because at the end of the day, you can plan an event as much as you want to. It's on the day, it's the managing of what happens, you know, how to handle the crisis, how to handle the problems. And it does help if it's happened before and we've learned from our lessons from previous matches. On the subject, something that jumped out there, you decided to move away from concerts.

I mean, Loftus is lacquer. I mean, how many times have we had used music concerts there? And it's been quite popular. That's an interesting development. Yes, I think, you know, since we've had, and we discussed it previously when we talked about the field, when we built the hybrid field about two years ago, the whole rugby demographic and soccer demographics have changed considerably.

Since we're playing in Europe, you know, there's a lot more matches than the original Super Rugby, so there's no more off-season anymore. rugby is now a 12 month plan or program and the same with soccer, soccer is about a 9 to 10 month program so in the old days we used to fit in the concerts nicely in between rugby and soccer there's just no time available we can find dates that's available but when you have a concert it's always risk of a bit of damage to the grass and you need time to repair and get it back ready to a good condition for international rugby and soccer um and what we've realized in the last two years is it just didn't work um we've had to move soccer features away from lofters due to damage to the pitch the the hybrid pitch is just more sensitive or the actually the grass we use is more sensitive than than the grass we had previously when we had a kukuyu based pitch so you know it's a decision we took with our shareholders um we our relationship with someone else is very important obviously and that's our core business with rugby so concerts is it's a nice add-on for our season ticket our sponsors and our suite owners but that's not our core business so we will probably in future look at it again but just for the time being as we discussed last time we've really been struggling to to get the pitch up to where we believe it should be um and one of the decisions we made is to to just for the time being not to have concerts at the stadium and uh we're going to talk about the pitch i'm actually more excited than a human should be about the pitch discussion that we're going to talk about in a little bit but before we get there like i imagine your job is the kind of job where when things go right everyone just assumes that it happened naturally and when things go wrong they're calling you to to complain can you talk about in in that broad responsibility what's the part that's the most challenging frustrating for you of your general job that that's the most stressful no 100 as you say when you know people come to a match for example um they buy the ticket and they go in they buy their beer and they go sit on their seats and they watch the game they've got they've got no clue that what happens behind the scenes but it's good because a lot of the things smaller things that go wrong they also don't necessarily know uh but yes if if you if you you come through the gates of Loftus and you've got a bad experience, it's my fault. Somewhere down the line, the buck stops with me, unfortunately. But I think, to me, the biggest challenge always remains the safety of the people, getting the people inside the stadium and getting them out of the stadium. You know, and we don't have major incidents or dramas, but, you know, a lot can go wrong if you've got 50,000 people entering the stadium.

Fans can get interesting. I've once had a call from a suite owner saying the ice is too cold. And I got a person that mailed and said the toilet paper is too hard. You know, so you have to work with that as well. But it's, you know, you try and keep the, I think you said it before, the fan experience is so important because that's how you get somebody to come back to the stadium.

So we focus on that. And it is a challenge because you've got fans from young ages to old ages. You know, I get calls on Monday saying, yeah, we play too much rugby, I mean, too much music. And then I get other calls saying, it's too much English music or too much Afrikaans music. So it's a challenge to keep your broad fan base happy because, you know, their demographics and ages and everything differ.

So it's finding that balance in between is quite challenging. On a day-to-day basis, the challenge is definitely we're in an old stadium. soccer world cup gave us a great opportunity to to you know upgrade a few things and stay in touch with other stadiums um but yeah we're an old stadium sometimes it's frustrating pipes break electricity is issues you know give us issues um we're very excited to to say that we're starting next week with new floodlights led floodlights which you know will just also give our stadium a total new look it's been it's been a challenge for the last few years just the lights aren't good enough anymore. So that, on a day-to-day basis, definitely the old stadium, and on a match day basis the big challenge is, you know, getting people in safe and keeping them happy. Look, you might laugh this a little bit.

You keep saying it's an old stadium, and to us it's such an institution. It's always been there. How old is it actually? What are the challenges that you face with an old stadium like that? It's very difficult to say the exact age of the stadium, because on this piece of Graz, they've been playing rugby for 103 years.

And yes, we even changed the grass. We even changed the soil two years ago. The state was built in many different phases. The main pavilion as it is now was built in 1977, North Pavilion in 1984, and the South Pavilion in 1988. And then the East Pavilion just before the Rugby World Cup in 1995.

And then there's minor upgrades, not really statical, but more electronic and electric upgrades with the Soccer World Cup in 2009, just before the World Cup. So, you know, it is old. the things the pipes for example electricity was installed main pavilion like I said 1977 most of it so pipes and roofs leak, pipes break and those things obviously happen on Sunday evenings half past 8 or not in normal working days but that's part of parcel operations management you need to be on top of these things so we try and do a lot of preventative maintenance where we identify these areas that it doesn't catch us off guard, but it is a challenge. Like I said, the stadium is old. But like you said, it's an institution.

Even all these years I've been involved, if I look out of the window and I see it, it's a beautiful, beautiful stadium, and we love it. I was going to ask you that when Envy said, so I'm a Stormers supporter, so I apologize for that on this call, not on other calls. But I grew up going to Loftus a lot and watching Western Province and North Transvaal. And it is an iconic stadium. And I wanted to ask you, do you sometimes have to pinch yourself almost to say, hey, I'm sitting in this cathedral of South African rugby and my job is to manage it and I have access to every part of it.

And is it like that or is it just a job? And do your children think you have a cool job? Yes, my son thinks it's the best job in the world. I must never leave here, so I'm stuck here for a few more years. As you were talking, I actually got goosebumps.

I was privileged. I think I was six years old. My grandfather took my brother and myself, and he knew somebody. We were on the main pitch, and my brother and I told each other, no wonder we're going to play here, meaning we're going to play for the Bulls. It's now 28 years, and I'm still playing here in a different way.

I've got a brilliant view of the field from my office and unfortunately one gets used to it because every day you see it the advantage is every time somebody new walks into my office and they comment on the view and how amazing it must be then it brings me back to wow it is really an amazing place to work, an amazing stadium so I do cherish that every day actually if somebody new comes to my office they remind me of this amazing place Wow, I got Envia laughs because I get goosebumps a lot. I got goosebumps while you were telling us about you getting goosebumps. And I had grown up in South Africa and lived in Pretoria and then went overseas and kind of got disconnected from rugby. And I told Envia after the 2023 World Cup, the first game I watched in South Africa again were the Springboks against Ireland at Loftus. And when I walked into that stadium, it was just, it was like walking on hallowed ground and it was packed and the crowd.

And for me, it was such a different experience than 30 years before. The crowd was different, was more diverse, young, everything. And so I will never forget that first game back for me as a South African supporter at Loftus. so I think you have the coolest job so tell your son I agree with that I must say the island game on 28 years is difficult to say highlights and so on but I think that island test match when you're referring to is probably one of the best I mean the atmosphere the singing of the anthems I never experienced something like that in my life before and I done 26 or 27 test matches but that was a special special anthem a special atmosphere that time I was just going to ask you, you've kind of talked about all the areas of responsibility you have. Could you walk us through at like a high level, what the week before a big game looks like, like a Bull Stormers Derby or that Ireland game?

What does your week look like? What are the things you're doing as the week progresses to make sure you and everyone is ready for the game? Yeah, I always say I don't have to be a rocket scientist to do what we do. But I think the fact that, like I said, I'm doing it for a long time and I'm very systematic in my approach, I think that helps a lot. A Monday and a Tuesday is primarily full of meetings, internal meetings with marketing guys, ticket office, financial, all our internal, we've got an internal team, obviously, different departments.

I also have got a separate meeting with the police and all the other role players like Metro Police, Disaster Management, the local government. So everything gets planned at these planning meetings. It's a lot of information that's gathered in these meetings and obviously then sharing this information with suppliers, service providers. As you go on in the week, especially if it's a bigger match, it's very interesting. that's just if it's the stormers match for example or test match the tempo everything is just higher the the request for for for different spaces and and tickets and parking all those things just get go to a different level you know um you also have to your sponsors you have to look after so we ensure that all our sponsors all their rights uh you know have been compiled with complied with and And so by Thursday, everything should be in order.

And then it's just the last bit that you manage. On the day before match and even on match day, it's really just checking the boxes. We've got checklists, making sure all the branding, all the public caterers, the bars, the suites, private suites, the stadium is clean, security, the plan is confirmed and finalized. So it's really a lot of meetings, a lot of checking. I'm lucky enough that I can walk around a lot in the stadium and see because, you know, you have to see if they're eye.

And then on the match day, it's purely actually managing the event and managing the issues because you can imagine if there's 50,000 people, there's possible 50,000 complaints or issues. I always look at the stadium when it's empty and say that I love it when the stadium's empty because there's nobody complaining. And do you get to enjoy match day or is that your most stressful time and you're busy all the time and don't get to enjoy the experience? It's actually the most busy day, but my wife will tell you I actually enjoy it. I think I enjoy the organized chaos of a match day.

And I must say when they kick off, somehow everything just starts to slow down and relax and I can actually sit down and watch the match as well. It doesn't mean something can't go wrong during the match, but it does calm down and I can actually sit and watch the match and enjoy it. Yechud, something I noticed when I was there for that week, Johan Akraman nailed a bit of a lunch for all the staff members just to say thank you kind of a thing. And I was surprised how few staff members there actually are for such a big organization. How many people do you, that works at Loftus for that matter?

people think it's this multi-million that organization but it's actually in terms of personnel it's quite small apart from the players outside the place but you said administrative staff which includes the marketing finance uh operations um you know we're about 52 i think to be exact so it's a small group of which you know my department is more or less 10 which includes the ground staff and reception and it says and such so we actually it's we're actually a very small business um uh you know financially as well um we don't compare with the big boys um but obviously because it's it's it's it's past time and and and so africans love their rugby and it's on tv so everybody thinks it's this major industry but sport is actually quite a small industry can we talk about the fan experience now because that's that's been a thing that that paul and i have had in common part of paul's history at he used to work for a big american it company was the chief fan officer or chief and customer officer whatever that particular title might be and there's a lot of the focus on customer experience lately and for me the bug there for example is sweet caroline playing i know people are not going to agree with me but maybe not sweet caroline by itself but we get around at the wrong time kind of a thing you know how does that work for example it's just the music side of it i know it's not supposed to become an entertainment thing it's a an experience everything else but i mean there has to be a bit of a balance between entertainment and rugby knowledge. You can't have Sweet Caroline play in the middle of a line-out right at the end of the game where the Bulls might win or lose the match and we're listening to Sweet Caroline. Who manages that? 100%. I think you said the word balance is the key.

And it's difficult finding that balance. So, for example, I'm always your age probably. Our marketing guys are younger. they've got all kinds of ideas to make the day more exciting. But we're all in contact with each other during the game.

So I'm like the gatekeeper from the other side. I said, guys, there's a lot of music now. All the music is loud. Let's just calm it down a bit. I'm sometimes not fighting a losing battle.

And I understand that. Like I said, we've got a diverse group of fans, young, old, different races. it's really amazing just to look at the demographics of our pavilion these days and we must keep them all happy and get them back to the game I think about my young boy and my kids are very young still they come for all different reasons to the stadium they like biliki, the music the fireworks and all the other stuff and hopefully with them coming here on a regular basis they will get the same love I have for the stadium, for the team and over years they will come for a different reason but so yeah it is it is a challenging thing but we try and keep that balance um but you know like i said you will never keep everybody happy unfortunately um but we do discuss it on a weekly basis after a message guys you know maybe it was just a little music or a bit more of your cars music or a bit more of this or less of that um so it's an ongoing challenge we have and we try and keep our fans happy because the end of the day that's what it's about fan experience is there something Envia kind of alluded to it that in my corporate career my last job was chief customer officer which at that time 10 years ago 15 years ago was quite a new concept in sort of American business but now more than 50-60 percent of companies have that role of someone that tries to look at the experience end to end. Who's the closest person to that in the bulls. Is it you or is there like a group of people that say we're going to think about everything from what it takes to buy tickets, parking, security, bathrooms, concessions, whether there should be alcohol-free zones in the stand, what it looks like on TV when the stadiums have empty, things like that.

Is it you or is there some person that kind of owns that mantle of looking at the overall customer experience i think it's a combination of different departments within in the company but what we actually do is we we we send out administrative staff probably in the front from the financial department who got no role to play on a match day um we tell them we give them money and say go online buy a ticket to the game bring your family and go through the motion go and buy a beer go do whatever you do in the stadium and and then give us feedback. And it's interesting because I know exactly where's what, and I've been here involved for a long time, and so most of the people involved in the event. So then you get a staff member who's got an 8 to 4 Monday to Friday job at the stadium, and now he buys a ticket online, and suddenly he struggles because the website is not user-friendly, and he can't get a parking ticket, or the parking ticket, it doesn't say where his parking ticket is, and then he buys a ticket, and on the ticket, it's very vague as where he needs to enter and how he needs to get there. you know so we do that on a regular basis and then we try and improve our systems um so we use internal staff for that as such and and it actually works quite well because because these staff members are they're not necessarily even rugby supporters um but it helps us because when you have international matches especially you get a lot of overseas fans who've never been to the stadium so for them to to to buy a ticket buy parking come to the stadium know where to go know where the toilets are, know where the bars are. If we are not prepared for that with our signage and our information and so on, you know, they'll have a bad experience.

So we do it on a regular basis. That's really interesting. I just want to volunteer myself and Envia. If you're ever looking for more people to do that for you, I'm for that. I'm trying to go to as many Springbok games as possible.

And I always tell Envia, I get the unadulterated fan experience from the beginning to end so uh and i agree that it's impossible to please everyone you know the test matches is even a further challenge because the test matches are in sa rugby um and we basically i do exactly what we do in a normal match day i just report to sa rap instead of supporting to my ceo for example um and with the test message rugby brings in different music different ticketing company different entertainment so suddenly if you if you've come to the stadium on a regular basis you get used to a certain way of of of how things are done and and how you can experience it and then for test match everything changes um so that's always the test match is challenging managing that those expectations and and also they keep talking to you so right and saying guys this is the following that we've done this works this is what you're saying now or proposing might not work because we've tried it you know so so we work closely with sa rugby and try and get an experience that's that's wow and amazing but it's also not uh so much different from the normal experience that loft is it's good you mentioned i remember 2024 the urc final the urc took over control of the stadium we all had to reapply for accreditation you had to take all the signs off and replace them with different signs i mean that must be an absolute nightmare now you're not just sitting of SA rugby, you're dealing with URC who sits in Europe. Completely different organization. 100% and it's becoming more regular either with Investec Cup, the same thing. Once it gets to playoffs, they basically it's their matches. It's not the home union's match anymore and you have to comply with all their rules and regulations.

And it's interesting, URC and EPCR, Investec Cup, it's just totally different in how they manage things. When the old days, we could do it basically the way we do it um but that's part of parcel of international sport you know because big companies major companies sponsor these these events and they want their rights to be fulfilled on these match days you know so it's it's you get used to it then you've got soccer we've got a total different approach to the branding part of it um but you have just have to adapt and luckily after a while again urc is now in the fourth for fifth season we we know exactly now what happens with with URC. EPRC sometimes still might be a challenge. There's only two or three matches a year at the stadium, but we're getting there. I would like to talk about this a lot more, but to make sure we have enough time, could we switch to the surface and the grass a little bit?

And I just want to say like 30 years ago, if I thought of Loftus, I would think of that really hard as concrete in the winter kind of surface with looked almost like it had no grass and it was yellow and could you walk us through quickly like just how it's evolved seeing that you've been there just in general the the grass and the technology and then talk a little bit about what emily alluded to is the current like modern surface what it looks like what the challenges are the advantages the pros and cons etc very briefly um i mean we brought the kukuyu that loftus in 1918 from kenya was probably one of the first kikuyu imported to south africa it was a wonderful pick 1918 um on this field like i said they've played on this field for for over 100 years the kikuyu is a strong pitch strong grass beautiful grass but as you say in the winter it's dead brown yellow ugly and and as as marketing became and television became more important we started around 2000 we started experimenting with an american rye grass which is a winter grass so we would physically cut off all the kukuyu in march april usually when the super rugby team goes overseas uh playing the super rugby we had a four five month gap there and then we'd recede with the american rye grass which is a winter grass which is green in the winter and this system worked well for a few years. What actually happens, the ryegrass, when it comes summer again in October, when the rugby season ended, the rye just basically died. And you come back from a December holiday and the kukuyu came back and just took over the rye So this system worked for many years and it probably from 2000 to 2009 But what started happening the quality of the ryegrass improved and these two started fighting with each other. So it didn't work. So in the Soccer World Cup, for example, we actually killed a kukuyu to get a rye-only pitch.

But that's not really a solution. So for the next 10 years, we went on with that and then until two years ago we decided um the the rye is a better option especially for football um uh and and obviously for tv because then you've got a green field whole year it's easier said than done because it's a very sensitive grass and and and not really built for our warm conditions here on the high felt so you struggle to keep it um alive and and green in the summer the winter it's a beautiful grass so about two years ago we conjunction with sun now decided we're gonna we're gonna build a hybrid pitch i've actually got an example of of how the stitches look so these stitches are 20 centimeters under the ground and each of them are a little grass piece like that so there's 2500 of these little stitches in a square meter um But when we rebuilt the pitch, the previous pitch was a soil-based pitch with kukuyu and worked like a charm. I think you've probably seen it in other stadiums. I don't know where to name the stadiums, where they scrum and a whole piece of the soil moves. So most stadiums have changed over to a sand base, and there's many reasons for it.

But the biggest probably reason is it's healthier, less diseases, it's clean, it's better for drainage. So most peaches are sand-based, but you can imagine if you plant grass on sea sand, for example, there's no stability. And that's why we went for this hybrid model that we did two years ago. So this plastic, which you actually see there, just gives stability to the soil. And then we reseed on top of that with American ryegrass.

So the ryegrass grows over the synthetics. You don't actually supposed to see the synthetic part. and then you've got a beautiful pitch that is strong underfoot. However, our pitch is not there yet. We've been really struggling and part of the reason why I think is the amount of rugby and soccer that we do play on the pitch.

As I said before, the concerts also played a role. So currently, some of the players will probably complain and say they're getting grass burns from our pitch because there's a lot of synthetic grass sticking out above the grass. It shouldn't be like that. But it's an ongoing challenge. We actually last weekend reseeded with 800 kilograms of seed.

We reseeded again to try and get the density of the grass thicker. And they actually germinated already. So if you think about it, it's a week and those seeds have germinated. So hopefully when we resume the URC, the pitch will look better, but also play better for the players. there'll be more grass on it.

Soccer loves a quick pitch. So to them, it's the same. They enjoy this pitch they're currently playing on. But for the rugby, I think they need a bit more grass. That's interesting.

You said rye grass doesn't like the warmer conditions. In summer, it doesn't look that good. So how do you overcome that now? Because still using rye, I mean, what's the answer there? Well, we use a lot more water.

It's more than double the amount of water we use in the winter months. uh it's very like i said it's a sensitive grass so um we we keep it hydrated the whole time um you know where in the old days you put on the cannons and they would go for 10 or 15 minutes and then there's enough water for the day where with the riots more regular shorter intervals five minutes an hour to later again five minutes uh honestly the moment it's too hot it gets black the leaves fall down you can just see it's the the grass stressing or the plant stressing and and then and once it's stressing you get diseases you know so it is a challenge in the summer uh and and but but we've we've managed to get the balance right so the winter is lovely then it just and it flourishes because it's actually a winter grass um and also for the same reason we'll never have a full 4g pitchers of africa because it's just too hot in in in on the high fall especially um that plastic will not work if you've got a 4g pitch not that we something we in any case looking at because we we still believe in right we should play on grass but you know there's advantages of 40 obviously um you don't have the damages all the you know you can have concerts in different sports and everything in days um but yeah we will always have grass at loft as i can guarantee you that i want to go off something you said you said the soccer players like the faster pitch do players have a preference and coaches and do they try to influence you during the season? Can you grow the grass a little longer because we want to have a slower game or can you cut it really short? Or is that up to you what the pitch looks like on the weekend? No, the coaches have a very big say, especially in football.

So rugby don't as much, you know, we cut the rugby and soccer for different heights, which works. And the majority of the time we've got rugby, for example, we can have rugby on a Saturday and soccer on a Sunday, which works well because you keep the the rugby at 30 centimeters of 30 millimeters and then for the soccer you take it down to 25 or 22 even if if required it's when you have it the other way around you've got the soccer first you can't make it grow quicker um but the rugby is a bit more flexible mamalodi sundowns play what they call carpet football a very quick passing game and that's probably their strength over other teams here when we when sundowns play away teams often let the grass grow to make it thick and slow actually to to you know to count it some ounces uh the carpet quick football um so no the soccer you know they they are very finicky more thing than rugby about the length of the pitch the the speed of the pitch um they like a quick game uh so the quick the shorter the better and like i said currently some places there's only arrived but i mean synthetic grass but they enjoy it because it's very quick i thought it's those little plastic things stick up stick out above the ground i mean i'm worried about your lawnmower height now what happens if you cut down the multi-millionaire and plastic strand by accident no percent it's something we installed it also and it will bother me interesting thing you know we've gone back to walk behind lawn mowers um they're just more accurate um then pushing pushing lawnmowers yes so it takes much longer it's a bit more labor intensive but you know it works better because it gives you a much better cut with this is a fine grass a rye grass is really a fine i always must choose my words carefully but it's a sensitive grass um it's a very fine leaf it's not a thick strong leaf it hasn't got a very thick or big root system so the walk behind pushing lawnmowers work much better and it gives a much better cut visible to the eye in any case has there ever been like a a grass disaster I think you were alluding to my Stormers when you talked about the grass kind of coming off the field. But I'll let that go. But has there been, I imagine there are some cases where something goes wrong and the grass is just not in the shape that it needs to be for the game. Can you recall something like that?

What's the biggest thing that's gone wrong that affected a match day over your career well i think in 2014 we we had a motocross at loftus and and it was an absolutely amazing event we they poured on tons and tons and tons of soil obviously built the motocross of course and it was an amazing event but um the next morning it started raining that evening and that you take off all this all this soil um and next morning i walked into the stadium going coming through the tunnel, which is usually always a special feeling walking through the tunnel, but as I was coming closer I just started smelling a rotten field, and I got to the field and the field was totally rotten from soil on it and then the water obviously from the previous night we had heavy downfalls, and we basically actually rebuilt the pitch we won't have motocross again and I think the storm was after there or Cape Town Stadium also not had motocross anymore there that's something we've learnt it just doesn't work to put that amount of soil for so long onto the grass, it's just not going to work but currently I'm honestly, to be quite honest currently our pitch is not in a great condition we've really been struggling when the bulls come off the field I look down at the players knees and if I see they've got grass burns I know we do not have enough grass on the pitch but I believe with this extra 800 kilograms of seed that we seeded last week we will get that sorted before they come back from from the europe trip the other side of grass of course is drainage i cast my mind back to last year when the stormers were here probably the biggest game of the season and there was almost no game because it was a deluge uh a cloudburst i can't remember you everybody was buying all the brooms in sunny side and just trying to get rid of this water what's the situation with drainage how does that work? I was one of those people using the brooms, but in any case the drainage is actually brilliant, that's one of the advantages of the silica sand base pitch we've got now, where in the old days when you had a soil base, it kept the water there's all kinds of drainage systems when you had in place, but the silica sand drains much better, actually too good, especially in the beginning so if we when we rebuilt this pitch, you could actually hear the water going through into the irrigation or the the exit pipes um so now after two years a bit of plant material starts staying in in the silica sand and and at least keeps the water but we've actually we actually do we actually spraying chemicals to to keep the water otherwise the water just goes through um the stormers game was was really a cloud burst i mean it was one of those things that I can't remember how it was 14 millimeters in like 20 minutes. It was just crazy. So I'm very happy with the drainage. It's not a concern for us.

It's really, like I said, actually, we're trying to keep water in now because we're putting fertilizers in water, and it's just going straight through because of how good the drainage is. But we knew that, and we're managing that. And there will be those days like that Stormers game where you get a cloud burst, and we could manage at least to manage to get the game going. Well, they needed the rain to win that game, but sorry for another day. But enough about the hybrid now.

The 4G thing, you know, we saw the Bulls play against Glasgow. We saw the Bulls doing all kinds of weird things that it doesn't do on a grass pitch. I heard from the Bulls, SEC people, for example, that grass pitch is so much quicker. The players run faster. The ball bounces differently.

But I also heard about the players picking up infections from playing on a 4G pitch, not at Glasgow. But is that a real issue? What's the problem there? what's the attraction of a 4G pitch number one and what are the downsides of a 4G pitch I think the biggest advantage of a 4G pitch and especially in Europe where the weather is not great we don't have those weather issues in Africa not even in the Cape and other areas our weather is actually great in Europe where it rains a lot it becomes an issue if you've got a grass pitch so I think a 4G pitch works better other big advantage is that you can have multifunctional sports and other events close off each other. I mean, you can have a concert and the next day play a rugby or soccer match and there's no damage to the pitch because it's 4G.

But one of the disadvantages is definitely I mean, at the end of the day, natural is just better than plastic. So, you know there's all kinds of diseases that the players pick up in the plastic 4G pitches. It is different. The ball bounces differently. It's not a proven thing, but I do know that there's more injuries.

I think a natural grass, if you sidestep, for example, there is movement. There's a natural movement in the grass structure where with a 4G there's less movement and I think more injuries. I don't want to comment too much on injuries because I'm not a medical person, but our statistics show that there's definitely more injuries when we play on the 4G pitches than on a grass pitch or on a hybrid pitch like we've got. We've got the combination. So I think the advantage of the combination is it's actually under the foot is where the hybrid pitches or the unnatural pitch and the natural pitches where players fall on and so on.

You've got a bit of a 4G strip on the side of Loftus there on the side of the main pavilion where the staff sit and the players sit during the game, because there's a lot of traffic there. But you also use that, the guys use that to practice on. What's the difference in terms of your studs and everything else? What's different to using it on a 4G that you can practice there and then using it on a grass field, a hybrid field? I think the stud thing is a traditional thing.

I don't think it's too big thing these days anymore. I remember all days you played at Newlands and you played at Loftus. and Newlands was a long grass, six, so they actually were your longest studs and so on So there not much difference in the studs as such anymore but you know they do from time to time do some practices on the 4G or the hybrid part especially when they know they're going overseas and they're playing one or two games there where there's 4G pitches. It is a different feel, you know. It just gives them that opportunity to train on it a bit.

Instead of training here on... And they tend to train on our outside fields, which is purely grass and silky Kuyu grass. In a perfect world, our training fields will be the same as the field inside, but it's obviously very expensive. So, yeah, they do from time to time do it. It's just, I think, it gives them a bit of ease of mind that they prepare for those hybrid pitches.

Just one last question. The Stormers did a hybrid field and lo and behold, they were in the country, so Loftus bounced and got hybrid fields installed as well. Am I right? Thank you, Stormers. yes um we actually at one stage we were going to plan to do it together and and and and we just look at the cost and it was just uh my board just said um it's too much money uh we we won't be able to do it now and um yeah i was actually i was so excited about the possibility you know there's two always had two dreams as a hybrid picture new led lights and and um then i thought that dream is going to pass by but we started negotiating with with our soccer partners and and at the end of the day they came to the party and said but we it's important for us as well the pitch so they said but we will we will pay half of the the costs and and we made a very good deal and and luckily then we the grass max the company that installed the grass they came back and they were too happy to a deal so in the end of the day it worked out very well for us i felt a bit bad about the stormers and Cape Town Stadium because it cost them a bit more.

So, yeah, that dream came true. And I can also just say we were talking about upgrades earlier, starting on Monday with the preparation of our new floodlights, LED floodlights, even if it's your colour lights. So, yeah, it's going to be amazing. Awesome, man. I know Loftus used to look quite a bit darker under lights than other stadiums.

Is that part of the reason why you're replacing it? Yeah, you know, with the Soccer World Cup, we installed new lights. it was still all old halagon night lights but the lux levels were 2000 uh we measured them recently and i think the average is like 800 currently and it's just as time the quality of the of the globes take take off you know so um so 800 isn't even international standard anymore for a test match you have to have 2000 so it's one of the requirements to host a test match and um we realize that this is a good opportunity to to install new led lights i'm i'm just so happy that i've met you gono because every time the stormers play the bulls i'm going to whatsapp you and ask you to make a grass that's not suited to goof trooperry to reduce the amount of goof trooper that they play um i don't know i could talk about grass i think mba i've established that i'm a real nerd and secondly for the people that in the comments are going to ask if I was around in 1916 when the first Kukui came in I just want to make it clear that I was not born then but I wonder if we should switch in the remaining time could we talk a little bit because you talked about the aging or the older stadium and I want to ask you like what's in the future for Loftus what are the things that are being talked about in terms of modernizing next or what are the things that you feel need modernizing next yeah i think you know you can always you can paint anything and it looks better than it looked previously and it's old but our biggest challenge on it not necessarily things that you see it's it's the um it's the concrete uh it's electricity it's the sewage um the water pipe so so those things are things that we focus on and yes obviously um you have to look at the outside because of the visible eye how it looks we do concrete rehabilitation and and now you're talking of 15 to 20 million for a project of concrete rehabilitation around the stadium but if you don't do that you know the concrete um will deteriorate and and and you'll get to the point where you can't use the stadium but there's other stadiums that south african stadiums well known stadiums that if they do it now it's going to cost them 100 million rand um to get their stadium up to a standard where it should be um you know in the old days rugby was easier fifa had a hand a very thick book was just this book then this is what you had to comply to before you could host a match fifa match and they say rugby has basically and it's a good thing you know gone the same route so they've become very strict about your structure uh your your infrastructure your lights your electricity everything is now checked and you have to be on a certain standard so so are most of our money time spent on that uh and then our marketing guys work hard to to try and make the stadium at least look look new we for example very very far in discussions about a new north pavilion total new uh development there and the idea of demolishing the north pavilion and rebuilding it uh right next to us we've got a mall of the spark mall and it's a nice modern mall and they want to that the look flows over from the mall to the stadium you know um there are concerns obviously you know if you think about lords cricket stadium we've got this old stadium and you've got that media box that glass structure in the middle there and that's and that's part of the issues that we said guys some would look amazing but now your north pavilion looks and suddenly your rest of the video looks even more older than it actually is um and but but those decisions are obviously very very big decisions to demolish a north pavilion or old pavilion and rebuild it cost millions and and it's something we won't take lightly but you know so there are plans um of modernizing the stadium we'll do it pavilion per pavilion and and you know try that doesn't look too bad while um the one is new and the other and still looks old. How hard is it to upgrade things or create more bathroom space and things like that in which I imagine like an older stadium compared to DHL it just was designed and built in a different time. 100% we and especially the female bathrooms I think when this thing was built females didn't work right because they're in the bathrooms so what we've we've done in the last year actually we've we've reshaped the bomb bathrooms made some of them we could cut them basically in half and and and change them they were old storerooms that we made uh bathrooms so we've really um up the the amount of bathrooms especially for the female bathrooms because that's a major problem at any sports event the queues at the bathrooms and and and that part of parcel of the whole fan experience i mean if if you have doesn't matter what happens on the field and inside the stadium if you have to queue for a bathroom for 10 minutes that's a bad experience and and we don't want that um so we've had one or two since since our bathroom upgrades we had one or two big events like stormers and the sharks games but i think our test will come with the test match this year against scotland and also the all blacks bulls vertical bulls game where we've got 50 000 people um and to see if this new if there's additional new bathrooms that we've created actually from other bathrooms and store rooms if it worked and if it's sufficient now.

The last question I have on the infrastructure. In the last few years I've visited many many stadiums in South Africa and outside and it seems like the perennial challenge of stadiums, even modern stadiums, is internet access during games. That it just gets overwhelmed by the amount of people etc is that like a real is it a technological issue or is it just a the amount of money you have to spend to get sort of decent internet when the stadium is packed with everyone wanting to send tick tock videos of themselves at the game i i would say it's more in uh technological issues um you know we've been privileged that our main sponsor vodacom uh they've invested heavily into that and and and we see the improvements but it is a challenge that i think uh hasn't been solved yet um you know it's a as you say it works 100 well when there's 10 000 people in the moment there's 15 000 people who sort of struggle and then goes up and then there's 50 000 people there's hardly any reception inside the stadium our the problem is like i said it's not unique to to our stadium most of the states have the same problems of africa but technology is improving we are really seeing the differences um like i said vodacom is putting a lot of effort into this uh because a lot of things and people don't also know is necessary is that we have got doctors next to the field they determine whether a player must come offer a hri injury assessment the referees work on apps with the substitutions so there's a lot of things happening in and around the field that needs um wi-fi or or connectivity so there's a lot of money spent on that for television for them and and obviously the next phases will throw this out to to the general public as well because rugby in like any sport is becoming much more interactive um and people want to you want to have competitions where people can jump onto their phones uh and and and and get involved into the event uh but currently it doesn't work because the connectivity just on security i I lived close to Loftus for a long time, and it got a bit dicey around all those car guards. I'm not sure if I should ask you this question, but the point is, you know, they would jump into women's cars, for example. You guys, on top of that, how do you address that problem?

It's outside the stadium, but it affects the fan experience. Yeah, exactly. As you said, the problem is outside the stadium. We've got no jurisdiction there. However, we do work very closely with the police and the Metro Police.

you know and there's even an initiative that started which hopefully can work where we can try and employ these car guards you know that we at least can manage them because it is dangerous it's not like as you say part of the fan experience it's I come early I've got a parking ticket so I'm again I'm privileged that I don't necessarily experience that until after a match I get feedback from fans and even my wife tells me you know it's a struggle to get in. So it's an ongoing thing, but the biggest challenge is that we've got no jurisdiction outside of our gates, so we can't really do anything there, but there's a few things that we're discussing with Metro Police, and they're very willing to help us. They all understand the bigger picture, and we all look together on this. There's even a place for those car guards inside this whole system of a rugby match or a soccer match. Maybe that's a good trigger for my last question.

Based on your experience and all the feedback you get from fans, what would you say is the number one or number one and number two issue of things that fans would really want you to improve or fix? parking for sure. And with parking, it goes wide. It's the accessibility to the parking. You know, sometimes I get people ask, can I have tickets?

You say yes, but I haven't got parking and I don't want the tickets anymore. So parking is... And people want to be safe. People want to be safe and park their vehicles inside the stadium or in a secured area. We've done a lot with...

We've got parking at the mall, but we also have very good relationships with all the schools around us where we basically buy their parking and resell it to rugby fans and soccer fans. And so it's a perfect world. The more cars we've got inside, the less cars are parked outside and where other things can go wrong. But having said that, you know, 50,000 people, you know, equals to about 15 to 20,000 cars on a very, very big day is a challenge. the roads weren't built for it the the areas around it wasn't built for it so you know it's getting the people in and getting them out without them being in queues for often hours or hours is a challenge uh we we're doing a lot of work with prosa now um they bring more trains to rugby and soccer matches which helps and even all the e-hailing companies we you know we're doing deals with them too and assisting them to to make that experience better so the more people using the hard train process trains and all the e-hailing facilities the less going to have vehicles these vehicles on the road outside the stadium so it is probably the biggest biggest thing that we've realized that people apart from bathrooms actually um which people will complain over if they've got a bad experience now i think that's it for me i just want to say uh this was fascinating for me thank you for your time and how openly you talked about your job and the challenges and i think this is going to be fascinating for all our fans so thank you very much i hope we can maybe do it in the future again thanks for that i really enjoyed it talking to you guys and yeah i'm all means i'd love to talk to you again Thank you.

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