Magazine - Suncorp Voted Best A-League Ground

28 Feb 2010 by dlp

well done mal

1 Mar 2010 by Peter Bass

Ouch that's a slap in the face to the grounds team's at Energy and Etihad Stadiums.

It's never that straight forward Schwab you might know that if worked on grass and not pushing a pen u #@*!

You Can't Handle The Truth. Bass atYa

1 Mar 2010 by Rob Jenkins

After a few calls on this article this might help clear up how the rankings work. These are the PFA rankings nothing to do with Pitchcare

THE Australian Professional Footballers' Association (PFA) has introduced a "PFA Pitch Rating System" in a move designed to ensure first class football pitches and player health and safety in the A-League.

The PFA's decision follows widespread concerns from players, fans and administrators about the quality of some A-League playing surfaces in 2008/2009.

The system, based on a model successfully implemented in Holland by VVCS, the Dutch players' union, will see the captains of visiting teams assess A-League pitches on a weekly basis by reference to four key criteria:

• the overall quality of the field for top tier professional football;
• the smoothness of the surface to encourage passing, dribbling and ball control;
• the pace of the field for the same purposes; and
• the hardness of the pitch, which can be a major concern given that the A-League season runs over the summer months.

"The decision to introduce the PFA Pitch Rating System is in line with international practice and is intended to bring some much needed accountability to an area of fundamental importance to player safety and the quality and presentation of the game," said PFA Chief Executive Brendan Schwab.

"The PFA Pitch Rating System will provide constant input from the players themselves on whether the playing surface is up to the standard expected for top flight professional football. This will allow for the public acknowledgement of surfaces of a consistently high quality or early intervention where a surface presents itself as a risk to either the quality of the spectacle or player safety.

"As Australian football quite rightly focuses its attention on building the technical quality of the game, it is essential that players are provided with playing surfaces that allow them to fully express and show their technical prowess. This will lead to an even better spectacle for the fans.

"In order to become a mature football nation, those responsible for the preparation of A-League pitches need to appreciate that football demands a playing surface of a much higher quality than would be acceptable for AFL or either rugby code."

4 Mar 2010 by pl.cronin@bigpond.com

First well done to Mal Caddies.He and his team deserve the award based on what the players assn have voted.

However Schwab's comments "that We often hear that maintaining the quality of the playing surface is difficult in multi-use venues. However, (Suncorp groundsman Mal Caddies') team has demonstrated that this does not have to be the case." is very misleading and not fair to those grounds staff that are really multiuse stadiums with lots of other events.

First- Suncorp does not allow training like the other stadiums,
Second- they have not had a concert on the ground like Etihad, this year! what would have the results been if say ACDC went to them before a game?
Third -interesting that Parramatta stadium scored all 5s for the 4 criteria but got no award?

They also do not have supa cross or crusty demons like SFS, Skilled Park,Dairy farmers or Newcastle,WIN grounds.

And finally the AWAY teams get to vote only. Bear this in mind for a moment!- How many home games did the ROAR win? 1 or 2?? .So if you are the winning AWAY capt and you are asked if there were issues? 9 times out of ten you will say no every thing is great!! Obviously this will go against grounds like Wellington,SFS and say , Melbourne and others whose teams won more home games.

As for hardness and pace of the pitch ?,What form of measurement are they using? Clegg, penetrometer or the "foot stomp" test.
The really true multi use stadiums are those that have a greater variety and cop lots of training or have multiple teams. You have to feel for the guys at Etihad ,who despite spending big money on lights that do work, they got hammered by events other than football, that no matter what you do, the turf will suffer.

The system should allow for the stadium to drop out two games from the list. That is best score and worst score . This may even things out more, especially those that have been hammered by training, wet weather abuse or other events.

Those stadiums that have had a bad run can then catch up.

It was noted that the scores did not change from round 9 to round 18 and to the final round even though some stadiums had really lifted their game. SFS and Skilled Park were two that come to mind after watching FOX, who had a bad start but the grounds were noted to have improved considerably as stated by FOX commentry over the midlle to end rounds.

The other point is that the Dutch scoring system relates to MAIN STADIUM football pitches only. The Dutch stadiums do not allow training on the Main stadium they have a number of training venues. All this counts as they do not have the same amount of "games" time use on their fields compared to Australian fields. Interesting also they do not have two types of turf(couch overseeded with rye in Aust) compared to 3 rye varieties in Holland. or a transition period. At the end of the season they get 8-12 weeks depending on where the team finished for renovations. try that at SFS?

If the players assn wants to have a rating system , all very well, but design it on Aust conditions /useage and use proper measurements for testing, not some light weight captain's leg as a stomp machine for testing hardness or kicking a ball a few metres to a team mate at warm up.

food for thought?