Playing Surfaces are real Problem

This post is brought to you by Ford Field.  The field that will be home to a pair of matches tonight in the Gold Cup has come into question in the days leading up to the match for the quality of its playing surface and that led me to think about some of the other low quality fields that I have come across watching soccer in North America.

I do understand that maintaing a quality grass playing surface takes a lot of time and money and it can be very difficult to do in areas where the weather is not good enough for the entire length of the season.  For a lot of cities in Canada and the northern United States it would be difficult to have a natural grass playing surface in good shape earlier enough in the spring to start the season since it is still to cold and wet for grass to grow.  That has forced a lot of teams to resort to using some form of field turf to ensure that it will be in playable condition for more months of the year.  I have played on a wide variety of surfaces myself as an amateur player and though I can see the positives to using an artificial surface it really is not the same thing and it takes a real toll on your body not to mention how awful turf burn can be from some of these surfaces.

That brings me back to Ford Field which is normally an artificial playing surface which is quite common in the NFL which is the fields main use.  I would have understood if they decided that they could not put in a real surface at Ford Field but I was glad when I heard that they would be putting in a grass playing surface for the Gold Cup matches since that would be better for the players and will improve the quality of the game.  This way we also wont have to deal with any issues of having NFL lines on the soccer field making it look poor and being a distraction as you cant tell which one is the touchline a lot of times.  The choice that they ended up making at Ford Field though was to bring in a natural grass surface and place it on top of the artificial one.  The concern with this is that the grass will not be thick enough and by the time that the second match in a row is getting near its end the surface may very well be torn up and filled with divots.

The players have reported that training at Ford Field has been good and they are enjoying the surface which is very promising.  Hopefully the grass is thick enough and able to stand up to have two matches played on it since that is a lot more stress on the field then just training sessions.

While I am on the topic of playing surfaces I really hope that in the near future Vancouver is going to be moving to a better one.  The White Caps current playing surface is artificial and with each passing game it seems to be getting worse and worse as the grounds crew are forced to add more and more plastic pellets to the surface every game and even more so when it has rained just to make it playable.  It may not be the direct cause of any injuries but I cannot be doing the Whitecaps players any good having to play on that terrible surface so often.  I remember seeing the condition it was in for the first league of the Nutrilite Championship and it was more plastic pellets then fake grass it seemed as some areas had taken on a dark almost black shade rather then being green.

The point is that playing surfaces are key and while grass is the ideal I understand it is not always possible but for the sport to advance in North America and in Canada in particular we need to work on ways to improve the field quality on which we play both for the quality of the games and for the safety of the players.