‘We have to think outside the box if we are to avoid financial meltdown ... 3G pitches can help
As Hawks prepare to rip up their grass pitch next month, a chairman of one of their divisional rivals insists artificial surfaces are a win-win scenario
artificial surface that Hawks will be laying, at a cost of over £450,000, can be a template to help clubs avoid ‘financial meltdown’ in the post-covid era.
As reported in Tuesday’s edition of The News, the grass pitch at Westleigh Park will be ripped up after the club’s National League South play-off campaign has finished.
By the start of 2020/21, they will have joined the evergrowing army of non-league clubs that are playing home games on 3G surfaces.
The hope is that the Hawks will increase their standing in the community by having a facility that local leagues and teams can hire, and the club’s academy teams can also play on it.
At present, 3Gs are banned by the EFL but the hope is that the pandemic could force a rethink as clubs search for new revenue streams.
The FA’s former technical director Dan Ashworth recently reunited the debate when he said 3G pitches must be up for discussion when football reboots itself after lockdown.
The last EFL match played on an artificial surface was at Preston’s Deepdale ground in 1994, though World Cup and European Championship qualifiers and Champions League games have taken place on them for some time.
The first Champions League game held on a 3G took place in 2006 at Spartak Moscow’s Stadion Luzhniki. The following year, Russia beat England in a Euro 2008 qualifier. Seven years later, England played Lithuania away on a 3G in another Euro qualifier.
Today, Andorra play all of their World Cup and Euro Championship qualifying games on a 3G surface.
Preston (1986-1994) were the last of four EFL clubs to play on a plastic pitch after Queens Park Rangers
– who laid the first surface in 1981, returning to grass seven years later – Luton Town (1985-1991) and Oldham Athletic (1986-1991.
Those surfaces were hugely controversial at the time, but technology has taken impressive strides forward since
Maidstone chairman Oliver Ash
then.
But Maidstone chairman Oliver Ash – whose club play alongside Hawks at National League South level – insists clubs in the lower reaches of the EFL should now be looking at 3G surfaces.
‘With this terrible crisis affecting so many people and damaging so many football clubs, which are vital to their communities, we have to think outside the box if we are to avoid financial meltdown,’ said Ash. ‘Going forward it will all be about sustainability. ‘Clubs will have to find ways of making their businesses sustainable in the interests of their supporters and their actual survival. ‘One obvious way of achieving this is by installing a 3G pitch.’
The National League allowed South and North clubs to play on artificial turf at the start of the 2015/16 season.
That coincided with Sutton – then managed by current Hawks boss Paul Doswell – ripping up the grass at Gander Green Lane and laying a 3G surface.
It also coincided with Maidstone, who had laid a 3G surface in 2012, winning promotion to the sixth tier.
With both Sutton and MaidThe
Clubs will have to find ways of making their businesses sustainable
We have seen supporters and players embrace the change, and locals coming in droves
It will allow us to involve so many more people in the club ... it’s a no brainer
Hemel chairman Dave Goggins
stone (the latter for the second year running) subsequently going up, the National League changed their rules in the summer to allow 3G surfaces from 2016/17 onwards.
All that followed on from the FA's decision in 2014 to allow artificial surfaces to be
Maidstone chairman Oliver Ash
used in all rounds of the FA Cup. Previously, synthetic pitches could not be used after the first round proper.
The FA also currently allow 3G pitches in the FA Trophy, FA Vase, FA Youth Cup, Women’s Super League, Women’s Premier League and
Women’s Cup.
‘We have now had five years’ experience of 3G pitches in the National League.’ said Ash.
‘We have seen supporters and players embrace the change in playing surface; we have seen that the highest quality 3G pitches encourage good football but also allow physical players to get stuck in.
‘We have seen no particular injury problems, a welcome absence of postponements, and local people coming in their droves to watch and play football at our clubs seven days a week.
‘It’s been life-changing in a totally positive way.’
Ash estimates the 3G surface is worth around £400,000 each year.
That sum includes direct pitch-hire revenues and indirect revenues from additional supporters coming into the club, as well as savings on grass pitch maintenance and postponements due to wet weather.
‘We know and respect the fact that some people still prefer to play on natural surfaces, even down in League 2, where pitch quality is inconsistent,’ Ash said.
‘However, the benefits of 3G pitches are so massive and the problems facing football so huge, it would be irrational not to give League 2 clubs the option to install them without delay and take advantage of the opportunity to transform their clubs into sustainable businesses capable of surviving this crisis and thriving thereafter.’
Back in 2012, Maidstone were the first English club to build a new stadium integrating the highest quality 3G pitch available at the time. Four years later, they ripped it up and laid an upgraded version at a cost of around £250,000.
Since then, other clubs have followed their lead – including Hawks’ NL South play-off rivals Dorking Wanderers, who laid a 3G pitch when their Meadowbank stadium was opened two years ago.
Here in Portsmouth, Moneyfields’ new £2.5m stadium – named after D-Day hero John Jenkins and due to be opened by the start of 2021/22 – will have two 3G pitches.
An increasing amount of clubs are ditching grass.
Hawks are certainly no strangers to playing on 3G, as divisional rivals Slough, Dorking, Maidstone, Oxford City, Eastbourne Borough, Billericay and Hemel Hempstead will all be playing on such a surface next season.
A primary reason for Hemel’s change – only announced last week – is to ensure all aspects of the club are integrated.
Tudors chairman Dave Goggins said: ‘To be honest, I am a lover of grass pitches and I would love to be able to retain our grass pitch.
‘But, unfortunately like a lot of clubs, we have one pitch and we have 450 kids in our youth section and very few of them get an opportunity to play here.
‘They feel a little bit disassociated with the club in some ways because they don’t get that opportunity. ‘Hopefully, with this, it will give them that but, as a club, it will allow us to involve so many more people in the club itself.
‘For us, it is a no brainer. We have to go down that route.’
That inclusive approach was behind Sutton United’s decision to lay a 3G surface in 2015.
Speaking back then, Dowell said a key benefit would be that all 28 of the club’s junior teams could train on the same surface as the first team.
‘That’s 28 sets of parents who maybe have never been to Gander Green Lane [Sutton’s stadium]’, adding ‘they’ll hopefully bring their child to training and think ‘maybe we’ll come