Artificial Surfaces
With Birmingham’s 2022 Commonwealth Games bid currently back on track, the city’s university has invested heavily in new synthetic surfaces to allow it to host the games’ hockey tournament. Head Groundsman Mark Roche details the work that has been undertaken in recent times. Report by Jake Barrow
University of Birmingham
Birmingham’s Commonwealth Hopes...
T
he University of Birmingham has recently had Olympic‐standard synthetic surfaces installed, as its parent city is bidding to host the 2022 Commonwealth Games, with the university set to take the reins of hockey events.
The pitches, like two full‐sized 3G surfaces also recently installed on the site, are made from Tiger Turf’s WetPro water‐based synthetics, and are being installed by McCardle Sport.
The construction is like a road. The stone acts as an attenuation, then porous Tarmac is laid on top of that, and a shock pad above that, finally with a layer of artificial grass carpeting on top. The pile is extremely short, as demonstrated in some of the images.
94 I PC DECEMBER/JANUARY 2018
The new pitches were also used soon after my interview with the university, for perhaps their biggest event of the year, ‘xpLosION ’. xpLosION is both the university American football team’s season‐opening game and a huge fireworks display, which can cost around £2,000. Every year, roughly 4,000 people stay to watch and have a drink on an embankment above what is now the main 3G pitch.
These will be joined soon by ten adjacent tennis courts, as part of a larger programme to reinvigorate the university's sports facilities.
Mark Roche, 41, is the uni’s Head Groundsman. His sports maintenance team consists of six members over four sites, including four grass rugby pitches and seven
football/lacrosse pitches, as well as the two recent 3Gs, a newly built athletics track and the new hockey areas, all maintained by the team.
Since the main pitch below the university’s clocktower, the pitch used for xpLosION, was transformed from natural turf to artificial, Mark said he has felt some reduction in pressure on pitch presentation: “I hadn’t really thought about that, because I’ve only had the new pitch for three weeks, but I’m not looking out of the window all the time.”
“And I’m not constantly having to mow the pitch, aerate, protect the areas that are under heavy wear. The pressure has been released. Having the artificial is quite nice in that respect.”
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