Maybe I'm biased because I dislocated my knee cap playing football on old fashioned astroturf.
I guy I played with had that happen to him on grass. I've never seen anything quite like it, his knee cap was right around the side of his leg and he was screaming like a baby. When the ambulance man arrived, he just flicked it back into position. Amazing.
Be names on shirts next. Then it will be electronic scoreboards, seats and roofs.
Yep, and "home" games in the far east, "The Aldi Supermarkets Valley", third division players on £20k per week, the Russian mafia owning half the clubs in the Prem, the Triads owning the other half, no drawn matches, the game being divided into quarters for the benefit of the TV advertisers, no relegation from the Prem, no tackling, double sized goals to increase the goal count and rolling substitutions where you can change your offence for your deee-fence according to the play that your (23) coaches have come up with.
Not all change is good, in the same way that change is not always bad.
Maybe I'm biased because I dislocated my knee cap playing football on old fashioned astroturf.
I guy I played with had that happen to him on grass. I've never seen anything quite like it, his knee cap was right around the side of his leg and he was screaming like a baby. When the ambulance man arrived, he just flicked it back into position. Amazing.
Mine popped back in after what seemed like hours but was most likely a couple of minutes. Agony. Still wince now when I think about it.
My surgeon said mine was the worst knee he'd seen since Gazza's. There the comparison ends as I'm much smarter and he was a slightly better player : - )
Not all change is good, in the same way that change is not always bad.
So judge the changes on their own merits rather than linking them to other non-relevant changes.
Maybe 4g pitches are good and maybe not but if it helps clubs like Maidstone thrive then they must be worth examining. Maybe at a higher level grass will remain but no need to dismiss it out of hand.
Henry, I've given my opinion. I can't be any clearer. You've given yours, and that's fine - it's up to you.
Not really sure why you have to keep responding to everything I have to say about it really. When it comes to football I like the tradition of it. End of.
It's also worth saying, that Widness will be using a 4G pitch next season in Super League, and Saracens are planning one for their new stadium, so if it's ok for Rugby then it's should be fine for Football
Is this worth saying? How can the two sports be compared? One is a sport with a round ball to be played along the ground. The other is a sport with an egg shaped ball chased by wrestlers.
But people go on about tradition and one of the biggest things that has changed is the ball - then you have footwear and you can see the tradition argument is a bit weak. The point has come where artificial pitches are up to scratch and introducing them will have great financial benefits in an industry that has its fair share of debts. The artificail pitches will look like grass from the stands anyway.
How much is the real cost of up-keep for a grass pitch? And how much is that compared to the outlay made by clubs on players wages, even at the bottom rungs of the league? I can maybe see the argument for a blue square north side saying they can't afford to keep the pitch in good nick, but Wycombe? Really?
I'm not one to say that there should be no progress in football, but abandoning such fundamental traditions as a proper grass pitch should only be done if there is a genuine case for it. Properly run clubs should be factoring the cost of keeping their pitches in half decent condition into their budgets. They've managed fine for 100+ years in some cases, why can they suddenly no longer afford it? If it's because players and agents pockets are being lined in preference to having a grass pitch then I'm against teams installing them.
Even the crappiest pitches are like bowling greens compoared to some pitches of the past, perhaps they are being over-maintained. It's nice to know each week there will be a pretty good surface to play on but it'd be shame to think we won't still get the occassional 'spectacal' like this one:
But how does a grass pitch play? The reason I ask that is that I played on hundreds of them over the years and many were totally different -many wer downright dangerous and didn't promote skillful football- so to say a 4G pitch is slower or heavier - slower or heavier than what? The difference is that a 4G pitch will play more consistently in different conditions. Consistently! Is that a bad thing.
Fair enough if you have experience of both but if you haven't i would say you are not qualified to have an opinion until you do. Football is probably one of the most conservative games in terms of progress- look at the way other sports embrace technology when it doesn't. Arguments are based on tradition - why change what isn't broken? Well one big reason to change is that 4G offers a top quality surface and on top of that, in a industry where debts are rampant, it would enable clubs to increase revenues from one of their biggest assests- their ground -which is criminally underused because the pitch has to be protected! 4G is the future.
Slower and heavier than a football league pitch, certainly slower and heavier than the pitch at the valley which i have played on. We are clearly not talking about park pitches and the like used by most sunday and saturday afternoon leagues, for whom it could never be cost effective to install a 4g pitch unless you were handed a huge grant.
Strange you should mention the valley pitch Bexley Dan. When we used it for the CL game a few years ago it was horrible. It was bobbly and possibly the hardest surface I have ever played on. Was wearing molds and could barely walk at half time. Now I appreciate they will water the pitch and prepare it far more for a league game, but still I have played on far better surfaces.
Plus I'm sure a 4g surface could be "tuned" to improve it. Just add some water and it'll be a lot quicker, use a slightly shorter "grass" length and it won't be so heavy, though possibly this would make it feel harder, but that tends to be the current trend with proper grass pitches anyway.
Strange you should mention the valley pitch Bexley Dan. When we used it for the CL game a few years ago it was horrible. It was bobbly and possibly the hardest surface I have ever played on. Was wearing molds and could barely walk at half time. Now I appreciate they will water the pitch and prepare it far more for a league game, but still I have played on far better surfaces.
Plus I'm sure a 4g surface could be "tuned" to improve it. Just add some water and it'll be a lot quicker, use a slightly shorter "grass" length and it won't be so heavy, though possibly this would make it feel harder, but that tends to be the current trend with proper grass pitches anyway.
surprised - i played on it in around 92 / 93 and it was as flat as a pan cake - maybe it's the new weave technology that has hardened it up, if they have it? The hard surface only reinforces my view that 4g pitches are slower and heavier however. The game is played more likea 5 a side game these days in the respect that the pitches are harder and quicker and the ball zips about more. Arsenal or Barcelona could never have played the stuff they do, twenty or thirty years ago so from that perspective it would be a backward step at the higher levels - in my opinion.
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My surgeon said mine was the worst knee he'd seen since Gazza's. There the comparison ends as I'm much smarter and he was a slightly better player : - )
Maybe 4g pitches are good and maybe not but if it helps clubs like Maidstone thrive then they must be worth examining. Maybe at a higher level grass will remain but no need to dismiss it out of hand.
I'm not one to say that there should be no progress in football, but abandoning such fundamental traditions as a proper grass pitch should only be done if there is a genuine case for it. Properly run clubs should be factoring the cost of keeping their pitches in half decent condition into their budgets. They've managed fine for 100+ years in some cases, why can they suddenly no longer afford it? If it's because players and agents pockets are being lined in preference to having a grass pitch then I'm against teams installing them.
Even the crappiest pitches are like bowling greens compoared to some pitches of the past, perhaps they are being over-maintained. It's nice to know each week there will be a pretty good surface to play on but it'd be shame to think we won't still get the occassional 'spectacal' like this one:
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Plus I'm sure a 4g surface could be "tuned" to improve it. Just add some water and it'll be a lot quicker, use a slightly shorter "grass" length and it won't be so heavy, though possibly this would make it feel harder, but that tends to be the current trend with proper grass pitches anyway.