Worthing Pavilion Bowling Club greenkeeper nominated for long-service award at 30th annual Club Awards gala evening run by Club Mirror magazine

Vince Ruttledge is among the 600-plus guests attending the Club Awards gala presentation dinner in Leicester on November 16, to be hosted by the television presenter John Inverdale.

Vince, whose working day starts at 5am, has been spiking and seeding, mowing and watering at Worthing Pavilion Bowling Club since 1979. "I love being outside," he says, although climate change has given him more than one headache in recent years.

"When I started, the growing season ended in September and the mowers would be put away until the spring. Not any more. And because we no longer get the hard frosts down here, leatherjackets and other bugs survive. They do a lot of damage."

Leatherjackets are the larvae of the crane fly (daddy long legs) and burrow deep into lawns, destroying the roots.

Fittingly for a man who has spent his working life as a gardener and greenkeeper, Vince is a native of the Emerald Isle. He was born in County Mayo in the far west of Ireland. His school days were spent in Doncaster, before he moved to Seaford in 1968 and set up as a freelance gardener.

For 10 years, he tended the playing fields at Ovingdean Hall School for the deaf near Brighton, then noticed an advertisement placed by the bowling club.

He said: "When I turned up at the interview, some of the members didn't realise I was the donkey looking for work. They saw my car and thought the mayor was paying a visit."

That is because Vince was a bit of a petrolhead with an eye for what are now classic cars. "In those days, I drove an old Citroen DS23 Pallas. It had an electronic fuel-injected 2.3 litre engine and hydropneumatic suspension."

There was little time to tinker with stylish limousines, however. The lawns at Pavilion were full of meadow grass, so he scarified them repeatedly and kept putting down better-quality seed to raise the quality. He was at it again this week, even though the outdoor season has ended.

"Looking after old greens is much more difficult than working with new ones, because the soil make-up is inferior."

Vince learned a lot from Jock Monroe, the top greenkeeper at Beach House Gardens, where the English Bowling Association championships were held each year until 2013. If there was an overflow from the main venue, matches would be played on the Pavilion rinks, which have long been acknowledged as among the best in Sussex.

"Jock was a character. He had scars in the back of his legs. He had fought in the Second World War and was shot while crossing a cemetery in France. I would chauffeur him all around the county when he acted as a consultant to bowling clubs, because he couldn't drive."

Bowlers are notoriously good at finding excuses when they lose, with the playing surface and the greenkeeper an easy target. Vince is, perhaps surprisingly, not a bowler, though he does know the basics.

He said: "If a player says 'that rink played horribly today', I say to him, 'hang on a minute, I'll get my woods from the shed and you can show me the problem'. They usually reply, 'oh, I haven't got time for that'.

"It's been a very tough year for the grass, because of the drought and the heatwave. When our irrigation system packed up, the colour changed from deep green to a shiny beige, like lino. For a couple of weeks it was faster than indoors. I had to put the hand hose over it to save the grass."

Although the lawns survived the record-breaking summer, the local fox population quickly realised a bit of energetic nocturnal digging on a watered green offered more food than could be found in parched gardens and fields. Vince would often be greeted by the unwelcome sight of holes when he arrived to prepare the greens for play.

Reynard and his pals might have steered clear if they had known Vince spent years killing vermin. "The farmers would pay me to shoot rabbits and pigeons. I practised at a clay pigeon club near Petworth and became quite good in the various disciplines, like skeet and trap."

Fishing is another of his pursuits. He progressed from coarse fishing in his youth to sea fishing. "I've been all along the coast from Selsey to Pett Level near Hastings." Even now, you might see him on the sea wall at Shoreham.

Mainly, though, he is on the greens at Worthing Pavilion. "I've always loved grass. It's nice to walk on and nice to look at. I like to make things look better."

The dedication he has shown for 43 years will be recognised at the 30th annual Club Awards gala evening, whose sponsors include BT Sport. In all, there are 39 categories.

Many associations representing the club sector will be there, such as the Royal British Legion, the Rugby Football Union and the RAF Association.

Club Mirror magazine, owner and organiser of the awards, has been promoting sporting and social clubs for almost as long as Vince has been tending lawns.

Caroline Scoular, the magazine's editor, said: "Clubs across the country have worked incredibly hard this year to constantly improve and provide a great service to members."