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Synthetic pitches


ForzaCaley

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If it were to happen I would canny enough to start taking orders for the turf that can be sold when ever it gets replaced. Aberdeen had to play a cup game on an artificial pitch and one of their injured players trained at a ground with artificial, to see if they could play in time and it just niggled the Injury. I'm sure the tecnology is improving all the time though.

 

The argument about DESSO is that its not technically 'artificial' .. its 97% natural grass and only 3% artificial ... the artificial portion being designed to make it more durable but not as damaging to players bodies as the old "Field Turf" product. Its not like the artificial pitch that is/was(?) at the Bught or better quality ones like (I think) East Stirling (or was it Stirling Albion?) !!! I will be interested to hear the comments made at this year's world cup when it is used for the opening game and one of the groups based in Sao Paolo. 

 

 

Toronto started off with Field Turf and although it was top of the range at the time it was still really brutal !!! weird bounces, bad injuries, and one time a flare was thrown onto pitch and a small square of the pitch went on fire. That was replaced with real grass in 2010 thanks to the transfer money received from Rangers for Edu but now that the Toronto Argonauts are likely to become unwanted lodgers in the stadium, DESSO is being touted as the solution, especially as quite a few other top level stadia in Europe use it and a few of those have both football and rugby teams to deal with which - if you replace rugby with the Canadian version of NFL - is the scenario for TFC sharing with the Argos. I remain to be convinced !!!  

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Was speaking to Robbo about this a couple of weeks back and he was telling me of a study done in regards the physical impact to players playing on artificial surfaces.

 

From what I understood, teams who play regularly on them pick up fewer injuries than they do on grass and they quickly overcome initial problems...mostly lower back aches resulting from a firmer surface.

 

In regards to what players prefer....they all want to be playing on a good consistent surface and there doesn't seem to be such polar views on whether that must be grass or an artificial surface these days.

 

Advancement has not only been made in regards to the playing surface.  In-fill has also evolved and causes no more problems (in terms of burns/grazes) than a sand based pitch.  The underlying structure on which the surface is laid is also a lot different than it once was and it's no longer just a carpet/underlay type setup.

 

IMO, with artificial alternatives being what they are now then it should be a no-brainer.  The biggest obstacle in balancing the books for a lot of clubs is the cost of having a pitch/stadium which is only generating any significant revenue on 30 or so days a year (at best).  Additional revenue from rentals, plus money saved from renting training facilities and facilities for use by youth teams etc would be a healthy 6-figure sum.  You also open up options like having other sports using it (ICT Hockey Club, ICT Rugby Club, ICT Shinty Club etc)....then factor in the possibility of having a sports bar/cafe that could (potentially) be open 7 days a week...and from a business perspective it would be crazy not to seriously consider it.

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Last year I played an 11s game at airdries stadium that we hired out. 22 of us paid something like a tenner each to play in a professional stadium with a ref. the quality of the artificial pitch was very decent I thought and if we were to rent out the stadium very much like what airdrie do then it would be a good bit of business. With them having so many clubs around them it is always in use. We tried booking it last month and it was constantly booked with teams like Motherwell and st mirren training on it.

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Last year I played an 11s game at airdries stadium that we hired out. 22 of us paid something like a tenner each to play in a professional stadium with a ref. the quality of the artificial pitch was very decent I thought and if we were to rent out the stadium very much like what airdrie do then it would be a good bit of business. With them having so many clubs around them it is always in use. We tried booking it last month and it was constantly booked with teams like Motherwell and st mirren training on it.

I've also played on that pitch at the Excelsior and must admit it is great quality, as has been mentioned pitches like that can be rented out and used constantly, and in the long term will recoup the money spent on it

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Seemingly County spent nigh on £700k getting their grass pitch sorted.

 

Keep in mind that they had to do it twice because they screwed it up the first time.

 

 

According to Tommy, ours needs a lot of money spent on it so we should seriously consider the longer term when making any decisions. I hope the men in black seats give this due consideration.

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