Wembley’s grounds manager Karl Standley helped to save the day for a school in Hastings last week.

When the St. Leonard’s Academy sports department shared a photo of the somewhat slipshod re-painting of their football pitch on social media, Karl was quick to offer up his help.

In particular, their centre circle was looking anything but central and after seeing the post himself, Karl responded from his own account to help them out before arranging to travel to East Sussex.

Ahead of his trip to the coast, Karl called on the help of Simon Rudkins, head groundsperson at Hastings United and also part of Wembley’s event day grounds team.

And after winning six grassroots pitch of the year awards in the Isthmian and Steps 3 and 4 leagues, he was certainly a help in fixing the issue.

There was also extra support from Fin Farrell Bramley, the 15-year-old assistant groundsperson at Hastings United, who was also able to pick Karl's brains on some of his tips for a career in pitch care and maintenance. 

“To help St Leonard;s out was a privilege, we benchmark ourselves on our standards and when seeing their issue we wanted to help them put this right," said Karl.

"To have an award-winning grassroots groundsperson in Simon and young future groundsperson in Fin made it a great team effort.

"After some work on the centre circle it was looking like Wembley’s and ready for the children of St Leonard's to play on. You never know, one day the children of St Leonard's could be playing at Wembley."