TURF’S UP!
JEFF Costello is well-known as a bloke who’s played many sports in the city but in his day job, he ‘paves’ the way for them.
Classic Sporting Facilities has been laying all sorts of artificial grass, or Astroturf, around the region for years and this week Dubbo
caught up with “JC” after rain held up the final courts he’s lying in central Dubbo.
“We’re resurfacing some courts at Paramount that were done about 12 years ago. This time we’re doing five courts,” Mr Costello said.
“Paramount’s always been a great club, it’s always been my club. We played a lot of tennis on the old courts at Elston Park and it’s been a great club for a long time, very well run, very good administrators and it’s good to see them doing so well.”
Mr Costello says tennis has waned in Australia over the years, from a time decades ago when a huge per centage of Aussie Vegemites grew up with racquets in their hands.
“I played tennis from the time I was six till 60-odd and it’s a sport you can always go back to,” he said.
“It’s a shame because it’s a great family sport, I can’t understand why more people don’t play it, especially as family units.”
With the COVID-19 pandemic creating disruptions for supply chains across the globe, he’s pleased he’s able to continue to source Aussie-made turf.
“We buy all our carpet from the same Sydney company we’ve dealt with for 20 years, they’ve always been good, they make it in Botany, it’s actually made in the factory there,” he said while looking at his handiwork, the last courts to be done finished in a striking colour scheme.
“It’s great, yeah, it makes it stand out. We did some blue courts at Scone, blue courts down at the Macquarie Club, we’ve got the terracotta and the green here and the contrast with these courts is very good; looks very nice,” he said.