Stadia Sports Turf Summit 2003

Natural v artificial debate

By Editor

This Thursday and Friday (6th and 7th March) at the Amsterdam Arena the Stadia magazine Sports Turf Summit 2003 is to be held. The two day seminar will hope to answer all the major questions on turf advances and how these innovations affect football clubs. Following the recent criticism of the state of the pitches at Premiership clubs in the UK and abroad, the role of synthetics as an answer to the problems has been brought to the fore.

The STS2003 summit hosted in association with FIFA, UEFA and AFC Ajax, will feature speakers from football's governing bodies and field experts will provide their relevant angles from both the natural turf and the artificial sides of the Industry.

Both FIFA and UEFA are spearheading their own development programmes for the use of artificial grass, with the recent press release that six European clubs will be trialling third generation synthetic pitches; are the omens bad for the natural grass Groundsmen?

The school of thought is no, there is certainly a place for the artificial market, in academy and occasional first team use at the training grounds, but the preferred choice of surface by the players is still natural turf.

There are certain stadiums in the UK and across Europe that lend themselves to providing a synthetic surface, but research and developments on natural grass, in terms of systems available, products and new grass cultivars is extensive as well.

Pitchcare will be attending the summit and hopes to bring you the debate back from Holland as it unfolds.

To register for the summit please phone +44 (0)1273 601900 or e-mail: expo@stadia.tv