Chasing Grass Perfection?
What you may 'need' to know
I do not have all the answers, but, I am seeking them. Everyday I learn something new and that is how I like it. If this article promotes thought and discussion, then the aims of it will have been met.
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Football, or Soccer; depending on your location, it is a specific sport played on specific surface and this surface should portrait specific characteristics. Like all sports that require a pitch or a field to play on, the most important aspect, is, without doubt, the pitch as with no pitch, there is no game.
You can get other footballers, you can get other balls, but you cannot get another pitch! UEFA state that the pitch condition and quality is the number one priority for their matches and if this is the case, you know it is important.
Before we get into what is required and desirable from a perfect pitch, lets think about and understand just a few of the issues that may be behind the need. It makes sense to establish the need initially.
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A poorly constructed, conditioned or managed pitch can and will have an affect on the players and sometimes outcomes of matches as pitches interact with both the ball and the players, these being the ingredients of essentially, the ‘game’ … ball, player, something to play on.
The playing surface has an effect on player tiredness, motivation and well being. It can create or reduce injuries, accelerate body muscle tiredness, or not, and has a large impact on player accuracy, control, grip, overall performance and stability to name a few!
I have never heard of a player looking forward to playing on a poor surface. Unless it gives an advantage to them over their opponent. Let’s say the other team is known to be stronger. So there maybe a hidden psychological impact.
This will affect 'both' ball and player
As, will this
Professional footballers' spend a lot of time doing cognitive repetition on a certain type of playing surface, known as training, this is carried out, on a daily basis. For arguments sake we should imagine this surface is great and displays constant characteristics.
Passing accuracy for both long and short balls and knowing the approximate final positioning is important for the player, team tactics and repetition in training allows the player to get a feel for this. Passing and making the correct adjustments to the force applied to the ball, direction required from the pass, type and amount of spin applied to the ball, final destination of the pass, the speed or current position of the player you are looking to pass to etc. (Multiple Simultaneous Attention)
The programming learned in training is hard to adjust from what you have become used to. You get a feel for what is needed from yourself, from your body parts and of course, from the 'pitch'! All because you have practiced many times before.
Eventually, you will expect similar results for your effort and instantly control your body and weight movement without the need for thinking about it too much during match time. This allows a player to focus on other things, such as the move after the pass, and further outcomes. You don’t want to be thinking, will that reach him? Not even for a a split second!
It becomes a natural reaction. If it does not reach the intended target, for reasons such as a poor pitch, everything, suddenly changes. The player imagines that maybe it was them making a mistake? Was it? Or was it something else? Maybe the usual conditions as found in training did not apply? How did the ball interact with the pitch?
When the pitch is poor, waterlogged, bare of grass, diseased, distressed, too hard, too soft, or bumpy, to name a few issues, you need to adjust what you have been practising and the outcomes are not what you expect, as the ball / surface interaction is suddenly different. The ball can deviate from normal expectations … the pass gets intercepted, that eventually leads to a goal against is just one scenario. This essentially, is no fault of the player! Away from passing and accuracy; Remember the Steven Gerard slip? Was this a pitch problem or something else? The issue ended costing the club dearly financially! We will never know the answer, but it is food for thought!
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When playing in an Amateur league team, a poor surface may not be such a huge hurdle to overcome and people just deal with it in their own way and generally are only there playing for fun. But when you have a squad of Professional players worth multi-millions of dollars, you want their very best, every move, pass outcome is important over the 90 minute period. The outcome of the game when you are playing in competitions also worth multi-millions of dollars becomes very important and vital for the business. Football at a high level is a business after all.
It is only right that a shareholder, owner or manager would want to eliminate any outside factor that could influence a football game result and provide the best possible playing surface for those using it. Essentially, you want to protect your investments, as a manager; protect the squad, eliminate or negate any and all risk (an injured player gives no return) and provide consistent and reliable conditions that allows all players to focus on what they are doing. Without interference! Basically, allowing them to use their skills and abilities that you purchased them for!
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It may also be the case that if a club has complete consisteny with all it’s surfaces, from training and practice to match. It may well lead to an advantage for all home games as the players are used to conditions and their pass accuracy may indeed increase.
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How many times have you heard a coach blame a poor result on the surface? Sometimes this is very true and other times, just an excuse. I know, there is definitely something in this! A pitch can have a huge effect on the game played and of course its outcome.
These were the conditions I found upon taking over a stadium surface back in 2016. The conditions I left it in can be seen on the opening photo at the start of the article
Is the perfect pitch something that is really attainable and worth chasing? Well, in my opinion, of course, yes, but there must be stringent rules applied to ensure quality and this is very much down to the type and quality of management the surface receives. There are lots to think about and the answer is not as simple as you may think!
Cost? You cannot get great results without paying something for them. Which leads to another issue to deal with, people wanting the very best, but not being prepared to pay for this! The perfect pitch needs time, attention and is a high maintenance aspect of infrastructure. This is where the old adage of ‘Anyone can grow grass’ should come under scrutiny!
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It is said, “Anyone, can grow grass”, well, yes, they can, but “grass will also grow itself” without the help of ‘anyone’… is a little more accurate. In terms of producing a resilient, consistent and reliable performance surface, then the answer is, no, not just anyone can grow grass and grass cannot do this at professional level requirements itself either!
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Being completely honest, I have met many so called experts in my time, and whilst people I have met do a good job and many more do a great job, it soon becomes apparent that there is some lack some fundamental knowledge and this plays a vital role with consistency. Especially when there are match schedules to meet and the weather is not conducive to growth.
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Education, as we are dealing with biology, is vital. Sometimes, you don’t know things until someone tells you! I have a feeling that many thousands of dollars has been spent rectifying problems that were not necessarily the fault of the plant, but a fault with it’s conditioning somewhere down the line.
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This is where biology bites, as just one example; if thinking about the spread of disease within a plant. The dead leaves (known as symptoms) are actually one of the very last stages of disease development. Time is spent then trying to kill it off, all a little too late! The actual infection itself may well have taken place weeks before. The symptoms appear when the environment is right and are the last stage or 'expression' of development.
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Getting back on track, lets now add a stadium, an environment where grass does not want to grow due to a number of environmental factors; such as lack of sunlight, lack of air movement, fluctuating temperatures from one side of the pitch to the other, then the management of the surface starts to costs more and requires specific attention.
Anything is possible, but, just like with great football players, it comes at a cost. When was the last time you saw grass growing directly under a fully grown large tree? Usually it is thin and sparse, but away from the shade, it grows better and stronger. Is it impossible to grow grass under the tree? No! But to do it, will take knowledge, time and someones attention.
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There are many factors, but in my opinion there are two ‘major’ requirements to produce a perfect consistent performance surface
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Number one for me, without any doubt, is the staff employed, their skills, experience and knowledge. Not just vital but imperatively vital! A little knowledge can be a dangerous thing, so they say.
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Daily maintenance and management decisions made are extremely important and have control over what the surface plays like. Generally the pitches staff will work long hours, including weekends. They do not do this for fun, their attention is essential and is the key to success, as is their dedication.
Technology is required to counter-act poor growing conditions
Number two is the connection between the club and the staff. If the club disregards advice given as to when and how to use the surface(s) then issues, without doubt, will occur. Grass is a plant, and whilst this plant can be encouraged to do things that are not completely natural to its normal growth behaviour (effectively forced to grow). Plants, also, do not do things instantly. They require time, although this time factor can be reduced with knowledge, nothing biologically is instant. Many people don’t understand this. But we can speed up the entire process, with care.
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It becomes a bit of a conundrum, the pitch looks great, therefore the team want to use it, sometimes a little too much! And this in turn affects how great the pitch is and weakens it over time. Back to the biology aspect. Plants take time to grow and develop! There must be a mutual trust. If there is opportunity to use, it should be used as this is what the pitch is for! To be played upon! However, if all is not well, it should not. This decision should be made by those managing it, they are the experts! We all have opinions and this particular one should the responsibility of those managing the pitch just like team selection is the responsibility of the manager of the team.
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We must remember the pitch is an asset and this asset should be used wisely. Unless money is unlimited! Other factors include the quality of the construction and the suitability of the growing media (usually sand based), working budget, available equipment and machinery, area of the World the stadium resides; not all places are subject to good growing temperatures.
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Then there are the external factors, quality of sunlight, water amounts, disease presence, shade type, compaction, speed of root development and movement (largely determined by management), type and conditions of the medium you are growing it on, speed of plant leaf growth and it’s method of self propagation, time of year, match and training schedules, plant reaction to wear, type of wear, species of grass grown (there are thousands) and many more. All need considering and adjustments should be made to management to compensate.
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Add to this that football is played through the winter period, a time when plants stop producing leafy growth, things can get tricky. How many of us mow our home lawn in January and February?
To list the number of things that can wrong with a pitch is impossible, it’s amazing how many there actually are. From biological problems, to environmental problems to pest problems and more. A playing surface can develop an issue overnight, but it will not repair itself the next night. Once a problem hits it can take weeks to recover. All stadiums and areas exhibit different environmental conditions that will have an affect on the grass. Grass health can, does and will change everyday. There are no rest periods, and there are endless problems that need solving. With the invention of undersoil heating and lighting rigs, we can now grow the plant 24 hours a day, everyday.
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It is how arising problems are solved that is important. It only takes one wrong chemical application or an unthoughtful or reactive application or operation of something that will will have an affect on the biology of the surface. If not immediately, then a week or a month later. On many occasions I have seen applications of chemicals that will not solve the issue present. Blind management!
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So how difficult is it to manage grass? Well, it’s not difficult if the grass is left alone (as prior discussed) in an open field to do what to was designed to do. Grow to its maximum potential, build up a large reserve of carbohydrates (for the hard times) and then propagate itself via seed to continue its evolution and ensure survival.
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The issue is we want to put this plant in environments where growth is not encouragable, we want to make it suitable for sport, pleasing and beautiful to look at play football on it, train on it, using boots with studs on them, run machines and equipment all over it, and then play around with its natural growth habits to make it give is some characteristics we like. When mowing, we are effectively cutting off its arms that it uses to photosynthesis. It grows the leaf and it wants to grow this to maximum length for maximum effectiveness of course! but, we cut it off, ad infinum! It wants to seed, we don’t allow it!
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Sports require that we make it suitable for the individual sport played. Such as a carpet like appearance that is comfortable, strong and beautiful to look at on TV. We want it to be turgid (ability to stand upright), have a good leaf texture and structure, have the right type of growing habit (generally three types of growing habit), offer resistance to wear, disease and drought stress, have a good colour, be strong, be reliable in all weathers and conditions. Be smooth and uniform, clearly marked out and perfect in size. Usually 105m x 68m
As discussed, naturally, what does the grass want to do? … Grow, develop a full canopy to take in all the sunlight and natural gases to make sugars used as food, develop a full root system to take in the water and nutrients and more gases, seed itself, then die back. That’s pretty much it. It does this all for free too, using sunlight as energy. It’s very clever in reality. We don’t allow the plant to do what it wants, for instance seeding. It can never get to this point as it is mowed too often and never develops a seed head.
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We need to apply some strategic thinking; how can we manage this plant and make it give us what we want, wherever we want it and not affect it too much? This, is the cause of the issues and this is why you cannot see great grass surfaces everywhere. Thought, understanding, knowledge, technology and skill make the best pitches. Naturally, it is not possible. But 'we' can and do make it possible.
There are a million ways to manage a grass plant. Everyone has their own technique and over the years we have figured out generally what works and what does not. We know what to do for many difficult situations and most generally understand the reaction and what happens when we apply this chemical or that chemical.
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The issue is biology. It takes not only knowledge of what the main problems are how to and avoid them, but, there is the issue of people understanding biology and understanding the long term consequences of their actions and or applications. We are all still learning!
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Along with millions of different methods for managing grass there is the million and one chemicals you can apply to force the plant to this or that, or prevent this or that occurring. And here, in my opinion is where we get maintenance induced issues.
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We have already discussed that each pitch will have a differing environment. Therefore, it makes no sense to manage all pitches in the same way. You could have a training pitch outside a stadium. it would be easy to simply do the same things to each, but it would not be wise to do so. To get the best results, you need to manage the surface as it stands and look to manage each particular surface as is needed, from what the plant is telling you, individually. The plant maybe the same, but the environment is different, they can and do develop differently.
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Thoughtful, knowledgeable advice is needed for results. Anyone can offer advice, but sometimes this advice will only end up costing you more, there is a lot of quick fix methods that bite later.
The pitch is integral part of every club and the guys who manage it all, keep the wheel turning and provide consistency.
You should want the very best from your surfaces, just like you require from players you choose to buy. A lot of time is spent training players, perhaps, occasionally, you should also spend time training the staff who play a key role in player performance, club reputation and results. When chasing perfection, this aspect is key.
This articles title asks if we can really chase and achieve grass perfection? Yes of course we can and we do. The pictures included in the article show the quality that can be achieved. But, speaking as an agronomist, chasing grass perfection … when it comes to literally millions of blades of grass and individual grass plants growing closely to each other, you must ask is perfection actually a reality?
All you can do is constantly aim for perfection, one match and one day at a time. Shoot for the stars….
For now, this ends the discussion. There are many other aspects I have not mentioned for purposes of keeping it all reasonable in size! Failed at that!
To cover all aspects of turf management it will require something the size of many books. if you break down all aspects in further detail, we are talking hundreds of books.
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From those looking into photosynthesis, to the water molecule and it’s role in the plant to those covering management of budgets and staff moral. It goes on …..
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I hope you got something from this particular read.
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If this has sparked an interest in what we do, for more information please
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Please note, all pictures are copyright to P Sharples (except plant cross section - Penn State University Website) - as seen when viewing from a PC, Not mobile).
