Fostering Youth Development
At Leigh Sports Village, we’re passionate about creating opportunities for young people, whether it’s through open access sessions at Leigh Youth Hub, half-term activities at the LSV Arena, or access to the wide range of sports and leisure facilities across our site. With a stadium that’s home to Manchester United Women, U21’s, and the Leigh Leopards, we’re proud to welcome young people from across our communities and help them engage with sport.
One of the ways we give back is by offering work experience placements wherever possible. Recently, Jacob Burgan, a student from the Wigan Borough, joined our Grounds Team for a five day work placement. During his time with us, Jacob helped maintain not just the pitch but the entire perimeter of the grounds. This helped Jacob to gain ‘hands on’ experience and insight into the behind the scenes work that keeps LSV running smoothly.
Jacob shared some fantastic feedback, reflecting on the skills he developed and the positive experience he had with our team.
“For my work experience I was lucky enough to get the position as a groundsman at Leigh Sports Village. Being able to participate in this amazing role was absolutely fab. My school provided five days of work experience, and I was extremely lucky to be able to do my work experience on a match week and it was one of the biggest matches of the season.
Being a groundsman, comes with a lot of tasks and responsibilities including cutting the grass, but not just the main pitch, the whole perimeter, including the college, the surrounding areas and the training grounds, whilst also making sure that the watering systems and fertilising equipment were operating properly. Being able to be part of the team made this an amazing experience, you felt a sense of satisfaction, mainly because you’ve spent a week sorting, managing and making the pitch perfect so that thousands of people can enjoy the game.
A large portion of that enjoyment is mainly because of the groundsmen, if there wasn’t such a good team of people working to keep Leigh sports Village perfect and maintained it wouldn’t have the value and loyal following of its fans.
Working at Leigh sports Village was an unforgettable experience, mainly because of the tasks that they let me complete. For instance, the groundsman team let me ride the sit on lawnmower, I was able to mark out the entire training pitch on the first day, I was able to drive tractors to move products and cut the grass on the main pitch which was unbelievable. I also got to mark the red lines on the main pitch which would normally take a new employee a full year to be allowed to do that!!
I want to thank Leigh sports Village for letting me be a part of an amazing team and a special thank you to the owner of Leigh Leopards, Derek who after the match he let me meet the entire team and sing the winning song in the changing rooms and wrote me a very heartfelt letter and a possible job in the future. I would like to give an even greater thank you to Keith Porter, the head groundsman at Leigh sports village. He is a great example of what a manager should be. He gets along so well with everyone in the groundsman team at Leigh sports village .
Another thank you to the rest of the groundsman for making my placement an extraordinary experience. Everyone at Leigh Sports Village comes together as a community in a positive environment, when working there I didn’t see any negativity between employees, they all got along and worked as a team. No matter what area or department, working in Leigh Sports Village is a great example of what a workplace should be like. Thank you so much for everything you have done.
All the best- Jacob.”
Thank you, Jacob for your thoughtful reflection. It was a pleasure to hear about your positive experience with us. We’d also like to extend our thanks to our Grounds Team for their support and encouragement throughout Jacob’s placement. Providing meaningful opportunities for young people in our local communities remains at the heart of everything we do.
