Alternative surfaces used for football have been around for at least forty years. The first surfaces were little more than a carpet consisting of a plastic-based pile and backing layer. From these crude designs, a slightly more practical design followed with better quality materials and an infill layer of sand. Most of us can remember certain professional football clubs using the second type or generation surface during the late eighties, unsuccessfully. There were many problems with the payability of these sand-filled pitch types mostly related to surface hardness, friction injuries, traction/grip and erratic ball bounce behaviour. Subsequently, the clubs that chose to use such artificial surfaces at professional level soon removed them and returned to natural turf.
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