Synthetic Turf Pitch
It will take a lot to beat grass as a playing surface for football. Real turf is soft and springy and the ground underneath is hard enough to support a wide variety of movements while being forgiving enough to absorb falls and tackles. Yes grass would indeed be perfect except for the weather, however at the Mid Ulster Sports Arena this is no longer an issue. The state of the art 3rd Generation Synthetic Turf Pitch is FIFA and UEFA approved for competitive Soccer it is also suitable for Gaelic games and rugby training. Suitable for play in all weather conditions it plays and feels like real grass. Securely enclosed and with full floodlighting it can be hired as a full pitch for matches or training or hired as a half pitch for 5 aside football or for training purposes. Background and Development The first artificial turf was laid in the 1960's at the Houston Astrodome and other artificial pitches appeared in American baseball and American football stadia over the following decade. Football clubs looked on with interest and some followed. Dr Eric Harrison is Chairman of the European Standards Committee on Sports Surfaces and consultant to FIFA " In the early eighties in the UK a small number of clubs dug up their grass pitches and laid artificial turf, notably Luton Town, Queens Park Rangers, Preston, Oldham and Stirling Albion, but fans didn't like the game it produced and most players hated it. The bounce was unpredictable, mainly too hight, the ball travelled too fast across the surface and worst of all any player going in for a sliding tackle was likely to end up with third degree burns. Finally the stability of the pitch could be quite variable because like a carpet it would sometimes stretch and ruckle making the playing surface uneven.- Within a year or two the English and Scottish football leagues banned artificial turf for sanctioned play. The Artificial Turf industry has now taken advantage of the experience gained from the afore mentioned negative aspects to develop a third generation product that is more football friendly. Footballers are now being offered a playing surface that is highly similar to natural turf. With this football turf, the following characteristics are the most important where the players themselves are concerned: Sport specific criteria such as ball-roll and rebound have been drastically improved and are now virtually identical to those achieved on a natural playing surface. - The risk of incurring graze injuries has been reduced.
- Improved stability and safer stopping are guaranteed.
- The playing surface is soft enough to absorb impacts and shocks.
- The player's boots sink into the turf filling material just as they would with the earth under natural turf
Most of the products still use silica sand, but only for the purpose of weight stability and in the bottom layer of the playing surface where it does not come into contact with players. Most of the products have a layer of rubber granules on top of the silica sand and the remaining (approximately) 20mm of fibre are left loose. These loose lengths of artificial-turf fibre correspond somewhat to the blades of grass of natural turf growing out of the ground.
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