YOUR FORUM FOR PLAY, SPORTS UND LEISURE AREAS
German national coach and former FC Schaffhausen player Joachim ‘Jogi’ Löw attended the opening of the new pitch at SVS which is already seen as a winner. “The pitch is better than we expected”, says SVS coach Edgar Sepp. “The ball rolls correctly, the new surface rewards accurate and controlled play”. The reaction among the players is all positive. “The surface certainly suits my team because of the many skilful players we have”, says Sepp. The president of the Schaffhausen Football Federation, Heinz Rähmi, agrees: “The Bühlplatz artificial pitch is one of the new generation of synthetic turf playing surfaces. There is absolutely no comparison with the plastic pitches that were installed ten years ago. Skilled players definitely have an advantage on artificial pitches.”
Greater Usage
The training sessions on the new pitch do not differ much from previous years, explained Sepp, but it does allow him to carry out the whole session in one place rather than having to leave the pitch for certain exercises so as not to damage the grass. Sepp adds that it’s especially welcome for the ‘Spielvi’ youth section. Now they can just concentrate on playing without having to worry about damaging the pitch. Rähmi echoes this sentiment: “We can use the synthetic pitch all-year round. Now we can run our complete training schedule in early spring and late autumn. There’ll be no more postponements due to bad weather and the pitch can take several games on any single day.”
New production technique: 100% recyclable artificial turf
The artificial turf is not tufted as the majority of the artificial football turf pitches. It is woven according to a new and patented weaving technique. This results in a completely recyclable pitch. The new weaving technique has the additional advantage that it enables the turf manufacturer to create a much more dense turf system with many different yarn types, colours and pile heights. Many players said it is hard to distinguish from natural turf.
Artificial Grass Is Here to Stay
Rähmi and Sepp agreed on the bright prospects for artificial grass especially in football at the regional level. Rähmi says: “If you look at Switzerland, I’m convinced that it’s the way to go, especially in amateur football because it lets you use the pitches as often as you like. Many clubs don’t use their grass pitches for training from November through to the end of March but the synthetic grass is playable whatever the weather”.
