Pitch battle

摘要

I'm in Dunfermline, the ancient capital of Scotland. The town is home to a beautiful old abbey and royal palace, the final resting place of Robert the Bruce, and the birthplace of Andrew Carnegie, the man behind Manhattan's Carnegie Hall and Pittsburgh's Carnegie Mellon University. But I'm not here for the tourist attractions. For me the big draw is a large corrugated iron shack on the edge of town. It's not exactly an architectural gem, and you'd struggle to describe it as historic. But it does house what is arguably the leading biomimetic technology in the world. East End Park is the home of Dunfermline Athletic football club. In March this humble stadium became the proud owner of Europe's most advanced artificial grass pitch - around 7000 square metres of verdant plastic which, its manufacturers claim, is the closest you can get to the real thing. If they are right, it puts this unassuming local landmark at the vanguard of a global sporting revolution.