Football Pitch Construction

A modern constructed football pitch will typically have 200-300mm depth of a sandy soil to one of mostly sand.

However, the majority of football pitches within the UK are marked out on resident soils which can have a range of drainage capabilities and match carrying capacities.

Many will have a relatively low carrying capacity and will be prone to water retention, ponding, compaction and are more easily worn out than specially constructed (and very expensive) pitches.

To maintain a consistent and suitable standard on the majority of pitches is challenging at best and not achievable in many cases, without a noticeable deterioration in playing quality. Typically, from mid-season onwards many natural turf pitches will show signs of increased or excessive wear.

A general overview of the different, broad, categories of pitch construction and drainage types is as follows:

1. Soil based, without any installed drainage system. These will range from heavier clay soil to lighter sandy soils. Playability on this type of pitch is dependent on prevailing weather conditions, with sandier pitches having more flexibility than heavier clay-based pitches.

2. Pipe drain installed to an existing soil-based pitch (This is often referred to as primary drainage). The drainage pipes will only take away water that has reached the depth of the pipe, so a pipe drained pitch offers little if any benefit over a non-pipe-drained pitch.

3. Sand-gravel slits installed over pipe drains within an existing soil-based pitch. (This is called secondary drainage). This drainage will also have a sand-top (of about 25-30mm depth) to maintain the viability of the slits, otherwise as games progress through the playing season they will become capped over with soil from the pitch and their effectiveness can be reduced to almost zero. These can help remove surface water to enable games to be played after a certain amount of rainfall.

4. New construction, which will be a sand carpet, sand profile, or suspended water table pitch. These significantly increase the ability of the pitch to drain and can produce excellent playing surfaces, albeit for a limited number of games until surface coverage and stability starts to degrade.

5. Reinforced-hybrid pitch, which might be
• A reinforced pitch with inclusions within the rootzone profile, although this type of pitch might now be classed as a legacy pitch due to newer technologies.
• A hybrid stitched pitch, with artificial grass blades forming about 5% of the pitch surface.
• A hybrid laid carpet pitch, which has artificial grass blades embedded into an underlying backing material, again forming about 5% of the pitch surface.