ISSUE 4 OCT - DEC 2015 QUARTERLY YOUR GUIDE TO ALL THE DEVELOPMENTS IN SYNTHETIC TURF CAN INSTALLING SYNTHETIC TURF SYNTHETIC TURF INCREASE LANDSCAPE: FORMULA 1 SPORT PARTICIPATION? PLUS: » DEVELOPMENT OF SYNTHETIC TURF IN AVIVA PREMIERSHIP RUGBY » CAN GOLF SHIFT TO SYNTHETIC TURF IN THE FUTURE? ... AND MUCH MORE Women’s football has developed enormously since the first FIFA WWC in China (1991), with FC PORTO’S YOUTH a total of 29 million women worldwide playing ACADEMY TRAINING football – further highlighting that football is now one of the most popular team sports CENTRE amongst young girls and women. Bryn lee, Industry Authority and former Portuguese Liga Sagres team FC Porto is Global Business Director of Bonar Yarns, states widely seen as one of the best clubs in “Throughout the World Cup we saw fast, safe and Europe, maintaining their high standards entertaining football. The tournament has shown supported mainly by a huge scouting that synthetic turf is the future, not just for football network all over the world and a high but for various sports.” performing youth academy. Even when World Rugby announced its venues for its 2015 World Cup matches, it was interesting to Regarding the latter, FC Porto has invested in renovating note how many of these grounds had an essential their former stadium, the Campo da Constituição, 3G element. into a brand new training centre dedicated to their Rosslyn Park, one of the oldest National League youth academy. The stadium, which served as home One rugby club’s with more heritage than you can to FC Porto from 1913 to 1952, gave place in 2008 to imagine, had recently opted for a new 3G pitch. As a complex of high-level modern infrastructure, named home to one of the biggest school tournaments the “Vitalis Park”. This youth centre serves as anchor for in the sport, installing an advanced turf pitch is a the club’s project “Dragon Force”, a youth development huge development not only for the club, but for the project based on football schools and trials for children young players who could be the next generation aged from 4 to 14 years old. It is designed to help of rugby greats. produce players for the first team, with an identification As you can imagine once again participation in the to the FC Porto Culture, the development of players CAN INSTALLING sport has not only increased, but made children abilities and life skills. genuinely excited about the opportunity to play To sustain an ambitious model of youth development, SYNTHETIC TURF INCREASE on a surface that has far more advantages than top quality facilities are required to better train youth natural grass. teams. The ultra-modern Vitalis Park consequently SPORT PARTICIPATION? Although sport participation is thriving, due to also comprises a synthetic turf 11-a-side pitch and various campaigns and high profile tournaments/ a covered synthetic 7-a-side pitch, both of FIFA 2 star events, there is still a huge opportunity to rank for football turf fields. Such installations provides BONAR YARNS Although Britain haven’t laid as many synthetic hockey increase this participation through the installation young players with a playing surface that offer safe pitches as Holland and Germany, we are catching of synthetic turf. More pitches result in more and the most predictable conditions possible under Have you ever thought about how to up. Hockey lends itself to both elite clubs and the involvement and encouragement to become part any circumstance and in any weather condition. increase sport participation for your local community; however England Hockey are focusing its of the sport – the availability of state-of-the-art This helps for optimal players’ tactical and technical club or community? Well it looks like efforts to stimulate even greater sport participation at facilities is a massive driver towards participation skills development, so that they can come up with installing synthetic turf is the answer. club level, as the placement of such pitches can have a and can help inspire players. better solutions to every game-related situation. It huge impact on the growth and sustainability for clubs. also contributes to form more complete and creative Some of the best surfaces in the world are now players, who are then also trained to produce a more Statistics have revealed that the London 2012 There is a currently an approx. total of 120,000 that synthetic – eventually new systems and innovations technical style of football, based in a general manner on Olympics had a massive impact on the popularity of play hockey in England Hockey’s 842 affiliated clubs, must be incorporated into sport to see players and playing the ball on the ground, with rapid sequences of hockey among young people, with participation in with the number of teams and players per club rising tournaments flourish. The facts and increased support short passes and ball possession. year after year – which is incredible for a sport which is for artificial pitches only further highlight its ability to the sports junior section increasing by 40% since the Like several professional football clubs in Europe played purely on synthetic turf. develop and increase sport participation in the future. Olympics, according to reports from governing body now, FC Porto is setting the example to follow England Hockey, and synthetic turf is at the forefront The 2015 Women’s World Cup has also increased Don’t let the opportunity pass you by, and consider in terms of youth player development in using of this charge. participation in football – particularly for young installing synthetic turf for your club or community – technologically advanced synthetic turf pitches you won’t regret it. “Synthetic surfaces have created and support a fast- girls. The tournament, which was played entirely on to guarantee optimal training conditions for the paced, highly skilled game,” states industry consultant synthetic turf, has inspired young women across the evolution of players in the academy. Dr. Martin Schlegel, “this type of surface provides truly nation and has had a massive impact on the perception unbiased ball roll, encouraging the development of of the game at grassroots level – further encouraging finer skills.” participation and involvement in the sport. 2 ESTO QUARTERLY ESTO QUARTERLY 3 In Scotland, too many games get postponed during the winter season, as the pitches are not practicable due to the poor weather conditions (wind, heavy rainfalls and hail). Postponing games has a big impact on the club’s financial health, as crowd attendance is a lot bigger when games are played on the weekend rather than in mid-week. Researchers found that clubs incur extra costs and decreased attendances if games are postponed in the winter. Many matches are re-arranged as a mid-week fixture where attendances are lower on average. This presents an issue for Scottish clubs in particular since match attendances make up a greater proportion of revenue for Scottish clubs compared to other countries. Therefore having a synthetic pitch makes it less likely that teams training sessions or matches will be postponed due to the weather conditions. Although the topic of synthetic turf has provoked Scottish Premiership: much discussion within football circles in recent - Hamilton Accies – New Douglas Park years, season 2014/15 saw the use of synthetic pitches in the top tier of Scottish football for the first - Kilmarnock – Rugby Park time since 2005. Clubs such as Alloa, Airdrionians Scottish Championship: and Forfar have been using them in the lower leagues for several years now. - Alloa Athletic – Recreation Park Synthetic turf was first trialled in English football in - Falkirk – Falkirk Stadium the 1980s. However these trials proved unsuccessful - Queen of the South – Palmerston and the use of synthetic pitches was banned in Scottish League 1: England in 1995. In Scotland the first team to install a synthetic pitch was Stirling Albion, who played - Airdrieonians – Excelsior Stadium on one between 1987-1992 (SPFL, 2014). The next - Forfar Athletic – Station Park team to subsequently install one was Dunfermline - Stenhousemuir – Ochilview Athletic in 2003, who at the time were playing in the Scottish Premier League – now Scottish Premiership. Scottish League 2: SYNTHETIC TURF However in 2005, following a vote by the rest of the - Annan Athletic – Galabank league, Dunfermline were made to remove their DEVELOPMENT IN pitch and go back to playing on a natural grass - Clyde – Broadwood surface following complaints from players and fears - East Stirlingshire – Ochilview over an increased injury risk. SCOTTISH FOOTBALL - Montrose – Links Park Since then there has been an increase both in the CLUBS quality of synthetic pitch and the number of teams that have adopted them in Scotland. Hamilton Academical installed a synthetic surface in 2004. Stenhousemuir followed in season 2006/07, with Alloa Athletic installing one the season after. It should be noted that at the time all these teams were playing in either the Championship or below. Season 2014/15 saw artificial pitches return to the Premiership for the first time since Dunfermline in 2004/05. With the promotion of Hamilton Academical from the Championship and the decision by established Premiership team Kilmarnock to install a synthetic surface there are now two Premiership teams using them and 12 teams out of the total 42 professional football league clubs (SPFL, 2014): 4 ESTO QUARTERLY ESTO QUARTERLY 5 FIRST CRUYFF COURT HATKO INSTALLS THE HOCKEY WORLD LEAGUE FINAL IN LIVERPOOL SECOND FIFA TWO ON THE FIELDTURF BRAND NEW PITCH INSTALLED WITH STAR ARTIFICIAL GRASS FIELDTURF TARKETT SAS TENCATE ECOCEPT™ PITCH WITH TENCATE FieldTurf Hockey Gold system hosts the FIH competition’s final at the International Hockey TEN CATE THIOLON GRASS FIBRES Stadium in Raipur, India. GreenFields and the Cruijff Foundation are TEN CATE THIOLON proud to announce the official opening of Early may 2015, Hatko installed a second FIFA** From November 27 through December 6, the FIH Hockey About FieldTurf the new court in Anfield-Liverpool.