Tuesday, July 3, 2018

Spending More Time Looking at the Pitch than the Players







 Checking out the turf...

Isn’t the World Cup fantastic? 

I suspect there’s a divided reaction to that question. I enjoy it but not for the usual reasons I suspect.  I couldn’t tell you anything about the teams or players and I’m not really that bothered who wins or loses. It’s the pitches that interest me. 

The football pitch is as much a part of the match as the players, the ball and the goalposts.  In the gripping finale of a close match I’ll be commenting on the grass sward and guessing the percentage of real/artificial grass and the composition of the sub strata and drainage(usually sand or polypropylene) . I’m asked to leave the room pretty often.

In my early gardening days when I worked for a local council, one of my main responsibilities was marking out the football pitches. Armed with my line marking machine with the squeaky wheel I would walk the pitch covering the old washed out lime with some fresh. The lines were always broken around the goal area as the grass had been worn away as well as some soil disappearing, probably making its way into the changing room showers, boots and washing machines. It was a mucky game especially in winter. I couldn’t understand why they didn’t play football in summer when the ground was drier, but that’s the time for cricket.  So for those of you interested in the grass here is a brief definition of the composition.

Football Pitch Grass
You might have gathered by now that most professional pitches are a mixture of real and artificial grass. This keeps things clean and tidy compared to when the ball would land at the player’s feet in wet weather, stop dead and disappear in the mud.

This is regulated by the Football Association.

The Football Associations have rules on the type of grass that is acceptable for use during professional games. One of the first rules declares that the pitch must be green; this doesn’t take into consideration about all of the advertising paint that’s becoming all too common on the pitch. This is because artificial turf can be used in places where the weather prohibits the use of natural grass and there are all sorts of colours to choose from.

The FA’s rule book states, “The field of play must be wholly natural or, if competition rules permit, a wholly artificial playing surface except where competition rules permit an integrated combination of artificial and natural materials (hybrid system)”. So that more or less covers every type of grass - real or artificial. The top stadiums use a very specific blend of real grass with artificial components as permitted by the FA.

Blending Turf
Described as a ‘sports playing field surface’, there are common hybrid systems available in the game today. It is made up of a mixture of natural grass and artificial fibres which pass the FA’s rules.
One company injects fibres into ready-made turf twenty centimetres deep which covers about 3% of the entire surface of the pitch. As the grass grows its roots intertwine with the artificial fibres and this anchors the field of play. The company that makes it claims that this allows for a solid, even structure of turf with better drainage than natural grass on its own and improved ‘playing comfort’.

Some of the best known stadiums that use it include Chelsea’s home ground, Stamford Bridge, Everton’s Goodison Park and perhaps the most famous of all is Wembley Stadium and if it’s good enough for the FA’s flagship ground no wonder other clubs have been quick to introduce it.

3G Pitches
Original artificial grass was called Astro Turf.  It’s pretty much the same stuff you see in garden centres now and after being laid on a cushion of sand had more sand added to it (This was the 2G pitch). If you have any memory about playing on this surface you would recall that when you fell over it was like sliding along a large sheet of course 40-60 grit sandpaper.  

The artificial turf sand has been replaced by a rubber crumb infill (3G) and more shock absorbing underlay technology. The rubber crumb mixture, which is made from recycled tyres, allows the surface to be played on for around eighty hours every week. A significant improvement on the five hours total that natural grass can cope with before it will struggle to recover. There are a few health issues regarding the use of rubber which are being investigated and a few countries are removing the pitches all together.  The main advice we are given is to wash ourselves after playing, to remove lime deposits too and the safest advice given is “If you get the rubber in your mouth, don’t swallow it” You’d need to empty your boots too.

A Growing Industry
Data from the major synthetic turf manufacturers operating in the EU indicate that around 1,200–1,400 new football fields are installed every year in the EU with over 40 a year installed in Ireland. Figures show 30 GAA pitches are also laid annually.

There’s a lot of money and technology in creating the perfect playing pitch but thankfully you’ll still find muddy pitches and coats as goalposts in parks and open spaces and if you want a kick about in wet weather, we’re lucky enough to have plenty of beaches not too far away.

 if you are still reading and would like a bit more information about pitches (especially GAA pitches then you'll find this article from the Croke Park website very interesting  

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