Industry
I’m led to believe that players are not allowed to make detrimental comments about plastic due to the contracts between clubs and manufacturers
about plastic due to the contracts between clubs and manufacturers.
Equally, the Football League was close to accepting 3G as a suitable surface in the recent split vote, whilst the FA’s Greg Dyke and other industry bodies have come out in favour. These developments must be a worry?
I’m not sure if the FA still has the blinkers on. Do they not see the standards that groundsmen are achieving in the Football League, both at pitch and training academy level? With the knowledge, machinery and techniques that are available today, good, natural grass playing surfaces can be achieved at any level.
Local Authority cutbacks have seen, in many instances, grassroots football hit by poor maintenance of natural turf. How might you tackle this issue?
You can only pare back to the bone, and then you know that you cannot go any further. We have examples nearby of pitches not maintained at local authority level and neighbouring authorities who have invested in no more than £40,000 worth of machinery, who can keep grass on the pitch all year round and who have increased playing hours by over 25%.
The authority to which I pay business and domestic rates charge £145 per game, per pitch. Let’s say - providing it does not rain - that they play for twenty-six weeks a year; one match Saturday and one match Sunday
Two a week = 3 hours x 26 = 78 playing hours/year
Or 52 matches at £145 = £7540 per pitch.
In the Netherlands, I know of a small local commerce serving a town of 15,000 where they have nine pitches, plus a grass running track. These are natural turf constructed/drained pitches, plus one 5-a- side plastic pitch (next to the clubhouse, which is only used in winter when the ground is frozen).
This is all maintained by one man with a 45hp tractor, trailer, fertiliser spreader, harrows, aerator and two linemarkers. He looks after these with the unpaid help of two OAPs who mark the pitch and empty litter bins.
The pitches are used for training after school ”
by children aged from 5 to 16, and for the team training as well. Actual professional play, per year, is 270 hours per pitch.
= 180 matches per pitch x £145 (assuming they are paying the same as my local authority)
= £26,100 per year x 9 pitches = £234,900 per year
For the outlay of one man’s wage £45,000 plus £100,000 of equipment over 5 years = £20,000 plus materials and contractors for grass cutting, so let’s say £134,900 per year.
A surplus £100,000 is put back into the community.
I don’t know if this is happening anywhere in my country.
Artificial surfaces are often promoted as being all weather, maintenance free, good revenue streams etc., which are strong arguments, don’t you agree?
In regard to all weather, we have heavy frosts and temperatures down to minus 10O
C; you cannot play on a plastic pitch in
these conditions. Similarly, in very high temperatures, the surface of plastic pitches can reach in excess of 37O to play on that?
C. Who would want
Regarding ‘maintenance free’; well, that may be a good selling point to the decision makers who sanction the purchase of these pitches - who probably have no idea what is involved in the maintenance. Let’s just say that, these past ten years, there have been numerous companies that have appeared providing machinery for maintenance of plastic, many are known in this country. However, when you go into Europe and further afield, there are numerous domestic companies manufacturing maintenance implements and machines. Therefore, I can only conclude that artificial probably needs more time spent on maintaining it than a natural grass surface, however, this is often an afterthought. If as much time and effort was spent on natural turf, what would the outcome be?
Revenue - yes, it provides revenue, but one pitch can only support twenty-two players or two teams. What could ten natural grass pitches maintained to a reasonable standard provide?
It has been suggested that minimum industry standards should be set for natural
turf winter sports pitches. Do you believe this would be a good idea?
Yes, a very good idea. However, I thought the FA already had a set of minimum standards, but I also wonder who from the FA checks them.
I can take you to pitches within a ten mile radius of my office where lines are three inches deep because Roundup is still being put in the paint; where you can reach the top of a crossbar when stood on the goal line, and my maximum reach is 7’ 7”. I always thought the crossbar should be 8’. I can take you to other pitches where, when stood in the goalmouth, the depression is nearly twelve inches deep!
Do you accept that artificial surfaces have their place? For example, hockey is now played almost exclusively on artificial surfaces where natural grass was once the chosen surface.
Yes, artificial surfaces have their place. As long as I have been in the industry, hockey has been played on plastic, I think it may go as far back as the late seventies.
One thing I would like to say is that it should be a necessity for every local authority to have a qualified groundsman in place for all sports surfaces; to have minimum standards of machinery that can bring a playing surface up to a certain level. If they want better standards, then create processes and machinery for this. Let’s all get together and help create these systems.
Thank you for your time. PC DECEMBER/JANUARY 2015 I 71
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