Why Artificial Turf Lost The Heart And Soul Of Football

During the 1980s a seemingly clever move to replace natural grass turf football pitches with an all new artificial turf was begun. In 1981, London football club Queens Park Rangers (QPR) removed its natural grass turf pitch and replaced it with an artificial one. The benefits of artificial turf were expounded and three other top flight football teams joined suit; Luton Town, Oldham and Preston North End.

Turf That Saves Money

Artificial turf, the football clubs explained, needed little maintenance and would save the clubs thousands of pounds a year in turf care, groundkeeper costs, fertilisers and turf seed. Not only that, it could withstand greater wear and tear meaning that the clubs were able to profit from the additional time it could charge different groups to use their pitches. It was, as they say, a stroke of genius.

As everyone knows however, the course of true love never did run smooth, and love for these football clubs' new ‘plastic’ pitches was soon to wane. Few liked them. There was also debate that footballers were arguably prone to more serious injuries and joint problems due to the harder surfaces, and visiting players complained of carpet burn type scars from sliding on the ground. Not only that, the spectators thought it was inherently ugly.

Ugly Football

Worst of all however was the fact that artificial turf changed the game itself. The ball was prone to bouncing about like a child’s rubber ball. This inevitably made the ball harder to control and more unpredictable – the resulting football was downright ugly too. Those clubs that had installed artificial turf were also accused of gaining an unfair advantage during home games because the team would be more used to the pitch having trained on it throughout the season.

All in all, artificial turf had been a disaster for football, something which the Football Association (FA) soon realised when in 1988 they agreed to ban the product from professional football grounds. What had started as a great idea soon collapsed into a farce.

Rolawn Turf

Rolawn are Europe’s largest grower and supplier of award-winning premium natural grass turf of the highest quality.

 

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