Jimmy the Mower: The Inspiring Story of a Groundsman who Mowed his Way to Wembley and Beyond
From a tweet about a council field to mowing at Wembley Stadium, the journey of Jimmy the Mower has been quite an adventure. In June 2019, Jimmy posted a tweet about how he cuts the grass at a local council field, providing the best playing surface he can for the local community.
The feel-good tweet resonated with adults who fondly reminisced about their own childhood days of playing football and using jumpers as goal posts and the tweet rapidly went viral.
The post caught the attention of BBC Midlands Today, who featured Jimmy on their morning, lunchtime, and evening news.
As the tweet continued to gain popularity, the grounds manager of Wembley Stadium, Karl Standley, saw it and tweeted an invitation to Jimmy to come and help cut the pitch at Wembley Stadium.
Meanwhile, Ransomes, the makers of the mower Jimmy was using, invited him for a tour of their factory in Ipswich.
During the tour, Jimmy had the privilege of cutting the pitch at Ipswich Town FC with a Ransomes Mastiff.
He was also shown the Ransomes Parkway 3 Meteor, a newer model of his trusty mower, and was given the opportunity to test it out. To his absolute surprise, Jimmy was handed the keys to the mower and told he could keep it for a year!
A few weeks later, Jimmy went to Wembley Stadium with BBC News and The One Show to capture his visit. After they finished mowing the grass, Karl Standley surprised Jimmy with a very special gift - a customised football shirt.
Jimmy the Mower's Viral Tweet
Video of Jimmy the Mower's Story
BBC Midlands Today's John Bray filming Jimmy the Mower
Jimmy the Mower cutting the football pitch at Ipswich Town FC
John Quinton handing Jimmy the keys to a Ransomes Parkway
Following his Wembley adventure, Jimmy's Twitter following grew rapidly. On a daily basis, people were sharing photographs with him of their lawns, cricket pitches, football pitches, golf greens, and more. Jimmy encouraged everyone to use the hashtag #patchoftheday and chose a weekly winner at random. The competition is still going strong, and anyone can enter on Twitter.
Since the viral tweet, Jimmy has attended SALTEX as a speaker at 'Learning Live' about groundsmanship in the media, he's written articles on lawncare and lawn mowers for leading publications, he's even turned on the Christmas lights at village events. Meanwhile he continues mowing and running his grounds maintenance contracting business, Ditton Services.
During the lockdowns, Jimmy continued to cut grass, understanding that public open spaces were even more important to communities than ever before. From a safe distance, dog walkers and ramblers would wave hello. Afterwards, many told him that he was the only human contact they had during those times.
With his passion for mowing, machinery and helping people, Jimmy started making YouTube videos to offer help, advice, and product reviews.
You can find his channel here @JimmyTheMower
In 2022 Jimmy was invited to be part of the official YouTube Shorts Content Creators team, and he attended an event at the YouTube head office in London alongside other YouTubers.
Currently Jimmy is being featured on TV, in adverts by Sky Bet, as part of their Football's no.1s campaign about community legends that deserve the spotlight for their fantastic work within the game of football. You can view Jimmy's full advert here.
More details can be found on the Sky Bet website
Karl Standley presenting Jimmy with a very special gift
Jimmy with Content Creators Matthew & Ryan
Jimmy with his YouTube Creator Manager Camilla Krum