A delve into the history of Verde Sports

IN 1988, John Hessey and his wife, Nancy, launched Verde Sports after the closure of Scana Leisure Surfaces. John�s ambitious personality soon led Verde to become one of the most recognised names in the bowls industry. The VerdeMat Roll–up became known as the �National Short Mat Bowling Carpet� and Mastergreen Outdoor Bowling Greens were rapidly installed throughout Cyprus, Tenerife and Spain. By the mid 1990�s, bowls was one of many sports successfully associated with Verde, with cricket, golf and croquet amongst those in which they triumphed. At the turn of the century, John and daughter Niki decided to diversify the business and launched the concept of �artificial grass for lawns, landscaping and leisure�. After a lot of hard work, long hours and perseverance, Verde had a distributor network throughout the country. Garden centres and builders merchants stocked its products from Inverurie in the north to the Isle of Wight in the south. Verde Artificial Grass became a regular requirement for film crews, theatres and photographers and holiday companies couldn�t get enough of the stuff! By 2005, Verde�s premises were bursting at the seams, so rather than move, they decided to sell the bowls section of the company, allowing Verde to concentrate on the rapidly expanding �artificial grass� section of their business. However, Verde has never been able to make a clean break from the bowls industry. Its nationwide network of landscape installers were continually asked to renovate bowling green ditches and banks. Today, Verde supplies a wide range of artificial grasses and needle–punched products for covering both natural and concrete bankings and profiled rubber is cut for the ditches in its Lancashire warehouse. Tomorrow� who knows� maybe Verde will go back into constructing bowling greens and manufacturing short mat carpets! Watch this space. Think Green�.Think Verde.