Are artificial pitches over-rated?

Printed in the Cray Wanderers matchday programme on Tuesday 16 April 2013 v East Thurrock United

Back in 1986, I was working in Harlow in Essex. I know you're going to ask, "what's so great about that?" The answer is, absolutely nothing, but I do have to mention it as a part of the background to my story.

Some time in June, during that year, the office I was working in received a challenge from our Luton branch to play them at football. In those days, I was still regularly refereeing football matches, so was still reasonably fit and able to chase around a pitch.

Needless to say, we accepted their kind invitation and someone at Luton arranged the venue. As the game was to be played 'out of season', they had no problem in booking Luton Town's Kenilworth Road ground. In days of yore, that stadium contained an artificial pitch. As a consequence, we had to wear trainers, because regulation boots with studs would have had a detrimental effect on the playing surface.

Several of our players chose to wear trainers but, as I was a referee and was required to officiate on several types of pitch surface, I already owned a pair or strange looking trainers that had knobbly bits on the underside and these trainers were most suited to artificial pitches of the time.

We arrived at Kenilworth Road by coach in the early afternoon on the day of the match. From memory, I think we kicked off about 3pm, so we had plenty of time to go out and 'inspect the pitch' . It surprised many of us, just how much the pitch resembled a thin carpet. Some of us decided to have a bit of a kick around and instantly realised that, we were not going to experience a straightforward game.

How the afternoon panned out was, the two ladies teams from Luton and Harlow played first, with each half lasting about 30 minutes. I think that game kicked off about 2 o'clock. Our men's team looked on and took notes on how the ball ran and bounced on the artificial surface.

However, when it did eventually get to our turn, we still found it difficult to get to grips with the enthusiastic bounce of the ball. Under normal grass pitch circumstances, when the ball comes towards you and bounces just before it gets to you, there's a reasonable chance that it can be trapped by a knee, of foot, or even the chest. But, on an artificial pitch, the ball would bounce and a fly up over head height – not only for little old 5'4" me, but also for those 6'+ players as well. We had a problem.

By the time we were 4–0 down, just after the half-time break, someone had worked out that perhaps we should try playing ball-to-feet and not trying to loft it over the advancing opposition players, hoping that one of our players would be able to trap such passes in order to try and advance towards the opponents' goal.

This worked for us temporarily, and we even managed to score a goal whilst using our revised tactic, after yours truly had been upended inside the opposition penalty area by a burly defender who couldn't understand why the ball was at my feet and wasn't in the air for him to nod away. Following this challenge, I had the mother of all carpet burns on my knee and lower thigh for several weeks afterwards.

So, are artificial pitches over-rated? Maybe, back in the days of carpet-style pitches they may well have been. But, I am only basing this on the one artificial pitch at a professional football ground that I have played on, and not at other grounds such as Queens Park Rangers' Loftus Road or at Oldham Athletic's Boundary Park.

A few years later, by which time I was working in Folkestone, I was again playing for my work's football team and we played on Astroturf pitches. These looked more like grass, even having short blades as though the pitch had been finely mowed. They also allowed for natural bounce of the ball, so we never experienced the farcical conditions of the Luton Town pitch.

I now understand, that there is a new type of artificial playing surface called 3G, the type that Maidstone United have installed at their new ground. I have not seen such a surface in action yet but, from what I have read on this subject, there are some Football League clubs who are getting very interested in replacing their grass surfaces with a new artificial pitch.

From what I recall of the Luton Town pitch, drainage may well have been a problem during medium to heavy rainfall. Considering its carpet-like quality, it could be imagined that rainwater would have soaked into the material and made for very soggy and impossible playing conditions. I am given to believe, though, that the latest type of artificial surface has good drainage qualities. We will all just have to wait and see.

And, no, I am not sales rep for artificial pitches. But, if they now go a long way to avoiding postponed games in non-League football due to a drop of rain, then I am all for them.

Trevor Mulligan