After spearheading the first all-female team of groundstaff to produce a professional cricket wicket, Kiwi Meg Lay is becoming one of the most recognisable faces in this important aspect of the sport in the UK.
It wasn’t just any old strip of grass the 27-year-old from the Canterbury town of Irwell prepared with her team for the game last July.
It was the pitch for the first Ashes T20 international between England and Australia women at Edgbaston, if you don’t mind.
Since then, Lay’s star has continued to rise.
She put herself on the map when she joined Gloucestershire County Cricket Club’s (GCCC) groundstaff in 2022 – when it was still extremely rare to see a woman in the profession.
Now the woman who was driving a pea harvester in Canterbury just a few years ago, is sought after for discussion panels, podcasts and interviews across all forms of media.
Her journey in 2023 took her from Bristol and Lord’s, to Nice and Monaco and back – scooping several awards along the way.
But for all she accomplished last year and the pressures she faces, Lay has promised 2024 is going to be even bigger – and she’s already delivering on that promise.
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It didn’t take Lay long after starting at GCCC two years ago to realise the turf industry has a big problem.
There are very few women working in it, true enough. But even more pertinent – there are very few people involved, period.
It’s often said there can’t be sport without volunteers and officials.
The same can also be said for those who prepare the playing surfaces, and Lay has made it her personal mission to take the turf industry to the world to throw a spotlight on its importance and value.
“We don’t have the amount of people we need to support quality facilities,” explains Lay, who grew up on an arable farm and worked in agriculture before moving to England in 2022.
“I’m passionate about women’s sport, and it’s women’s sport that suffers because men’s sport is always going to take priority when it comes to using the facilities. So the simple solution is to get more people into the industry.
“The guys are incredible, and if you’re passionate about the industry they don’t care who you are. They just want more help, so I want to help to remove that perception you have to be a male to work in it.”
Having quickly recognised the problem, Lay wasn’t content to sit on the periphery and wait for the solution to present itself.
Instead, she opted to throw herself headfirst into finding ways to combat the issue. A quick glance at her social media profiles demonstrate how serious she is at sharing her experiences; she not only posts behind the scenes photos and videos but also champions groundstaff colleagues and highlights the various issues they face.
Her efforts are already bearing fruit. She receives at least a couple of messages each week, predominantly from young people, asking her for advice about how to get into the turf industry.
“It’s very exciting to get those messages, especially from young people, because it’s also an aging industry,” Lay says.
“Trying to help lay out a path for them has been really cool, and I hope they do follow through.”
She stepped things up a notch with a successful application to become a member of the Women In Cricket Employee Network – a dedicated group of people within the sport throughout England and Wales aiming to give women working in cricket a voice to effect change.
One introduction in particular harnessed Lay’s motivation to make an impact, charting a path that culminated in the all-female groundstaff team preparing the Ashes wicket at Edgbaston.
“Meeting Claire Daniel [operations director at Edgbaston] was the first time I felt I had someone who’d back what I was believing in, and gave me the confidence to go ahead and do it,” Lay recalls.
In front of 19,500-strong crowd, the Australians clinched victory, and after the covers went on and the floodlights turned off, Lay and her team were able to reflect on what they’d just accomplished.
Their impact on and off the field also didn’t go unnoticed by the players, as a legend of the sport provided Lay with one of her highlights of the year.
“Straight afterwards I was walking around the cones from the inner circle, and Ellyse Perry came bounding over to me,” she remembers.
(Yes that Ellyse Perry, who played over 300 cricket matches for Australia, and is also a FIFA Women’s World Cup goalscorer for the Matildas).
“She shook my hand and said, ‘Thanks very much for looking after us this week’, and it was just surreal.
“Aside from the home teams, that was the first time someone had thanked me after a game in two years, and she’s the most high-profile women’s cricketer of all time.
“It just goes to show taking five seconds out of your day can make someone else’s, and it was a cool touch at the end of a long week.”
Leading on from the success of the Edgbaston initiative, opportunities continued to present themselves for Lay. She travelled to Nice and Monaco for the Turf Business Summit and was a member of the groundstaff for the Black Caps v England one day international at Lord’s last September.
“I asked the head groundsman at Lord’s if I could come and work there for the day of the match,” Lay says.
“I was expecting to do the rubbish jobs like picking up grass clippings and brushing the outfield. But he got me cutting the match pitch, right before a Black Caps game at Lord’s, which was unbelievable.
“You’ve been hearing about it since you were a little kid. Everyone knows Lord’s – it’s the most famous ground in the world.”
Looking up from the mower to take in the view of the majestic Lord’s pavilion and the infamous slope of the grass is a sight Lay will have to get used to. She’s leaving GCCC to become a member of the Marylebone Cricket Club (MCC) groundstaff at the spiritual home of cricket.
That’s a momentous feat in its own right, but with the vast scale of cricket played at Lord’s on an annual basis it will afford more visibility for spectators to see a woman in a male-dominated industry.
For her work leading one of the most impactful initiatives of the year, and her ongoing commitment to raising awareness about the industry, Lay was recognised with a plethora of honours and nominations – attending as many awards ceremonies in November as the Hollywood A-listers are currently doing in the run up to the Oscars.
As well as receiving a special recognition award from England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) and an outstanding contribution award from her employers, Lay was a finalist at the ECB’s Business of Cricket Awards and took home the Newcomer of the Year Award at the Grounds Management Association Awards.
But it was as a finalist in the sports category at the Women of the Future Awards where she looked around and had herself a significant ‘pinch me’ moment.
“There was the ex-director of MI5, and Cherie Blair [wife of former UK Prime Minister Tony Blair], and I just thought to myself ‘I shouldn’t be here’,” Lay laughs.
“I asked another woman what she did and she said ‘Oh I’m the Mercedes Formula One team head of legal, what do you do?’ and I just replied ‘I cut grass’.”
But Lay stresses the importance of people understanding not just the long and physical hours of the job but also an issue predominantly only talked about in relation to players, coaches and officials.
“After the men’s ODI at Bristol abandoned due to rain, I had to avoid going on social media for about a week afterwards,” she recalls.
“People were calling for us to get sacked, and that’s hard because no one asks for your side of the story. If players ever receive online abuse, clubs often release statements in support or there are other resources available to them to help them navigate through things.
“But we just soldier on, we don’t get interviewed about what happened and we don’t get the opportunity to share our side of the story.”
The close-knit nature of the Gloucestershire groundstaff team helped Lay navigate through the tricky periods.
“I’ve been so incredibly lucky with the team we’ve had at Bristol,” she says. “Initially I thought it was a fluke, but after working at other grounds for the day in football, rugby and cricket, I realised that wasn’t the case.
“Everyone gets it, it’s a real team affair and people want to share how they do things and help each other out where we can. I’ve never come across an industry that is such a community, especially when a lot of grounds are competing against each other. So it’s a very special thing to be part of.”
As an increasingly recognisable figure, not just in cricket but the wider sport industry, how does the responsibility of being a spokesperson and sounding board sit on Lay’s shoulders?
Pretty well, as it turns out.
“It is a privilege really, there’s no other way to describe it,” Lay shares.
“The only thing I do think of sometimes is I’ve only been in the industry a couple of years, and I would hate for the older guys in the industry to think I’m speaking when I shouldn’t.
“People are interested in me because I’m a woman, which is fine. But I want to use that to make sure it benefits everyone.”
So how does this trailblazer plan to keep the momentum going in 2024?
“It’s going to be a huge year, but I’m ready,” Lay says.
“Last year was so successful, but it’s what I follow up with this year that’s going to really determine the difference I can make. It’s super important I nail it and I’m excited.
“We’re going so much bigger this year with the projects we want to do and the different sports we want to reach.”
One big project fast approaching is the next instalment of the all-female groundstaff initiative, featuring the UK’s most popular sport, at a venue over twice the size of Edgbaston.
Following the upcoming international break, Women’s Super League football will resume and on March 3 all eyes will be on the London derby between storied rivals Arsenal and Tottenham Hotspur in the 60,000-seat Emirates Stadium.
After a sold-out and record-breaking crowd filed into the same venue to watch Arsenal defeat Manchester United, 3-1, in February, anticipation levels are high that another bumper crowd will be in attendance to continue the ever-growing wave of female sport viewership.
And at the heart of it all will be Lay and her colleagues, with up to 120,000 possible eyes witnessing them go about their work and discovering another avenue of opportunity – and not just for women.
