But it has been a labour of love for the 57-year-old.
The long-serving Delta groundsman was presented with the service to cricket award at the Dunedin Cricket Association awards earlier this week.
It came as a surprise to Soper.
"I’m not one to talk about what I’ve done," he said.
"It shocked me. I couldn’t even say anything. I was just blown away by it all."
It should not have come as a great surprise. Soper has built a reputation as a dedicated and passionate servant of the game.
He has been preparing pitches for the last "25 or 30 years" and is one of those workers who is always happy to do just a little bit more than most, Dunedin Cricket Association president Tony Buchanan said.
Buchanan lives across the road from Tonga Park and would often see Soper at the venue at 6.30am on a Saturday doing some finishing touches.
"He basically takes an approach of ‘these are my pitches’ and he wants to be proud of what he produces," Buchanan said.
"He is one of these old-fashioned sort of people who is not just doing a job from 8 to 5 and doing the minimum required. He goes above and beyond to prepare pitches as best as he can, basically."
The job certainly has its challenges. Preparing cricket pitches in Dunedin must be a bit like baking a cake with a one-bar heater. You need sun and heat to produce a good pitch and Dunedin is not exactly blessed in that department.
"That is the hardest part," Soper said.
"Dunedin weather is not easy and I sometimes think I’d like to be somewhere like Christchurch, where you often see the weather is a lot hotter.
"To prepare a wicket, I always maintain you’ve got to have 20 degrees-plus to get the surface baking."
Yeah, good luck with that.
The other challenge was the job just got too big. Soper was finding he had too many pitches to prepare and not enough time to put into each surface.
But that pressure has eased with City Care now preparing the surfaces in the south of the city and Delta responsible for the grounds in the north.
There have been some hiccups in the south since the changeover, but the surfaces Soper has produced in the north of the city have been of a high standard.
"Every block is different.
"Until you get to know those blocks and what water they will take and whether it is a hotter area and stuff like that, you’ve got to just work it all out.
"One block can be different from the other even though they are on the same ground."
