Module 2:

2.1 Introduction

1  In Module 1 we looked at what is needed from a pitch and a range of features that can make up a pitch. These are helpful in trying to describe, in an objective way, what is meant by a football pitch.

These features can now be turned into individual performance standards that not only allow a pitch to be assessed for an overall quality rating, but arguably more importantly help a groundskeeper to manage a pitch in an efficient and effective way by having well defined outcomes to aim for.

Let’s now return to the pitch itself and just think about some values that might be used to help distinguish between different pitch qualities.

From a player’s perspective the most important features are those which affect the experience provided to players by the pitch.

This experience is measured by using playing quality performance standards, with two main areas to focus on: player-to surface interaction and the player to ball interaction.

2  Playing quality standards that are commonly used are:

A) Ball to surface interaction:
1. Rebound bounce (rebound resilience).
2. Ball rolling distance (rolling resistance).

B) Player to surface interaction:
3. Surface hardness.
4. Traction.

C) Both ball to surface and player to surface interactions:
5. Surface evenness / smoothness.

3  In addition, live ground cover is also often included because this performance standard represents a visual synthesis of most actions a groundskeeper does to a pitch and is a feature which significantly influences the overall quality of the playing experience.

The infiltration rate and moisture content of the soil are other significant factors that affect the playing experience, and these can also be measured and used as a performance standard.

Measuring the infiltration rate can be carried out using relatively cheap items, although to get accurate and quick values for the soil moisture content then relatively expensive equipment is needed.

Both of these factors are often (vaguely) estimated just by the presence, or absence, of surface water, along with recordings of recent rainfall and the typical infiltration and drainage rates of the pitch’s soil.

4  A comprehensive analysis of the individual performance standards and how to assess the overall quality, in detail, of a football pitch would also be for another course.

For now, though, we will look at twelve of the features identified in Module 1 which can be more easily used as performance standards.

We will also consider how to arrive at an indication of overall pitch quality using these twelve performance standards.

Before we start to put some values against the different features / performance standards we will want to understand a little bit more about them and how they might influence play and / or pitch quality.