Artificial Surfaces “ History of Synthetics and Artificials
Artificial surfaces used for sport is something that has evolved over many decades. You can go back at least a 100 years to find an artificial surface of some sort being used for tennis, for example, and the waterbound type surfaces used for athletics have been around for decades. However, most of these facilities have been refurbished with more modern surfacing over time. It is wrong, therefore, to think that artificial
surfaces used for sport on sports grounds or leisure facilities is a new phenomenon. Subsequently, a lot of maintenance practice has evolved as groundsmen have had to get used to maintaining such surfaces. I can tell you, from bitter experience, that
if anyone thinks 3G or infill grass carpet surfaces are difficult to look after, you should have been around to look after shale tennis courts or hard porous water bound materials in a hockey context. These were genuinely a nightmare to look after and were subject to an immediate variation as the weather conditions changed through wet weather,
I can tell you, from bitter experience, that if anyone thinks 3G or infill grass carpet surfaces are difficult to look after, you should have been around to look after shale tennis courts or hard porous water bound materials in a hockey context
to procurement!
frost and dry summer months. They were a constant maintenance challenge and presenting a good pitch or court from a hard porous material demonstrated a real skill. It wasn’t until the 1970s that carpet
surfaces were developed for use in sport, although I suspect some of the early cricket surfaces as prototypes thereof were well on their way as well in terms of development and use. Synthetic grass surfaces were developed to
overcome some of the problems of playing sport in stadiums where grass growth, particularly warm season grass growth, was difficult and light levels were variable. They weren’t always a success, and have been subject to ongoing development now for many years. However, they do represent the mainstay in some markets, i.e. hockey, but are a fairly new innovation in others, for example winter sports use. I often refer to these sports as ‘studded
sports’, to mean and describe a 3rd generation type surface that can take a stud or someone wearing a studded or dimpled shoe with ease.
David Rhodes PC FEBRUARY/MARCH 2015 I 97
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