Field conditions - dry weather
- Thread starter JD1
- Start date
Time for Football clubs to invest in 4G pitches where applicable?
Do you know how much they cost?!
Indeed, in the London area you aren't getting change from £1.1 million to install a new 3G pitch, that figure comes from Sport England. Might be cheaper in other areas of the country, but not by a massive amount. Then you have the annual maintenance cost which they estimate at 3% of the install cost. Then it has to be professionally inspected every 3 years, and in most cases some kind of repairs are needed.
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… and x % for future proofing, whereby depending upon the amount of usage, the anticipated life of a 3G has imo been shortened from what the makers originally thought would be the case (knowingly or unknowingly!!!).
True but personally this is where i think regardless where the clubs are in the country they need to start thinking smarter than harder. There is a facility near me which host close to 10 teams (including juniors and reserves) across 3 pitches. It did mean some teams merging in the local areas however that has also kept some leagues going as a lot were folding due to lack of teams. Now they have reserve sides and almost guaranteed football every week
But who paid for that facility? 90% of grass roots teams in England play on grass pitches, it just isn't practical for all teams to use 3G. To use the most obvious example, there are 58 grass 11-a-side pitches at Hackney Marshes and they are used all weekend, to convert all of those pitches to 3G would cost £50 million+.
In this case it was a mixture of grants (Football Foundation, Local County FA, and Local council along with a university for 1 of the pitches). Although it might not be practical in all occasions, it could open up other opportunities, when the quote for £50million is circling, it sounds a lot but in this transfer window that is often a fee for 1 player. We had both Rogers and Anderson being transferred for potentially 4 x that combined. Although some money does come through from the Football Foundation which is great, realistically is it enough?
It might not be the case that it has to be enforced but if you looked at supply leagues and below, it would be interesting in a poll if you asked them how many would want to be playing on that type of surface who would take the option up if the funding was available. There are teams in the supply league that I AR on that have said playing on "grass" pitches in pre-season led to one team getting 4 ACL/MCL injuries before the season had started. There was also an cancellation of a match at a NCEL game, 3 fixtures in due to the pitch being too dry. This also helps mid season with less cancellations because of dangerous surfaces including flooding etc.
One of the more inspiring stories from the football foundation grants is based around Myra Shay in Bradford, https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-bradford-west-yorkshire-68693082 due to the Football foundation providing a lot of funds along with other grants, the facility which cost a total of £2million for the pitch, stands, changing facilities, and catering, it is one of the best in the league, they host 2 sides in the Northern Counties East League (supply) along with a junior set-up, 1 tier 3 team of the women's football pyramid along with hosting vets and a Sunday morning football side and other community teams for finals etc when the pitch is available. It has regenerated the area but with the amount being thrown around football these days, professional clubs could easily help out junior clubs or supply clubs in a similar fashion if not just to use the facility as a scouting area for their academies. I think this is a wider conversation, although I am not self-employed, a lot are within lower league football and you just hope they are covered for injuries. An ACL injury is a year out of football or could career ending. A wider topic to be discussed within Leagues and other set-ups.
Funding from the foundation is not likely to ever be enough, but is all that can be expected. It’s currently funding all the replacement of concrete/unsafe perimeter walls etc