Artificial pitches usually conjure up only one thought for footballers, be they professionals or pub league amateurs.
Pain.
The abiding memory is not of clean strikes and measured passes across a divot-free surface, but the sort of stinging, weeping burn that only a four-foot slide across sand-covered carpet can bring. Coupled with the ridiculous bounce off the rock-hard surface, it was no surprise when the FA - backed by Fifa and Uefa - banned clubs like Luton and QPR from using "plastic pitches" in England in 1988 (though some teams took a year or two to replace them in practice).
Now, though, they're back. Last month Blackburn were held 2-2 by Red Bull Salzburg on artificial turf in the Uefa Cup, and less than a fortnight later Spartak Moscow became the first team to host a Champions League game on an artificial surface, a 1-1 draw with Sporting Lisbon at the Luzhniki Stadium. If Sepp Blatter and Lennart Johansson get their way, they won't be the last. One can only assume Paul Robinson is right behind them.
"Fifa would have no complaints if all Premiership matches used artificial turf surfaces," says a Fifa spokesman. "It is difficult to predict what will happen in the future, but we feel they will be especially useful and popular in micro climates, and also with smaller clubs for economic and football development reasons/strategies."
It is not a new line. Fifa have conducted a series of studies into artificial pitches since the turn of the century, and in 2004 president Sepp Blatter declared them "the future of football". Blatter has publicly mooted the possibility of the 2010 World Cup being played on such surfaces several times, most recently after players complained of poor-quality grass pitches in Germany this summer. His Uefa counterpart Johansson has supported him every step of the way, and even urged Arsenal to consider an artificial pitch at the Emirates Stadium.
Such surfaces have, of course, come a long way since their last appearance in English football. The market leaders FieldTurf, who created the pitch at the Luzhniki, were the first to come up with the now widespread concept of "long-pile" turf - made up of tall, synthetic, imitation grass blades embedded in a "synthetic earth" mixture of sand and rubber granules. The system "creates a product which is as good as grass throughout", according to FieldTurf's vice-president of European sales David Wright - eliminating carpet burn, ending unrealistic bounces and drastically reducing the number of injuries.
Fifa concurs - and will only award its 'Fifa Recommended' marks to pitches that pass a series of rigorous tests to ensure player-to-surface and ball-to-surface interactions match those of their grass counterparts. A recent study comparing injuries sustained at the Under-17 World Championships in Peru, which was played solely on artificial pitches, with all previous Fifa Under-17 tournaments, found there to be very little difference in the "incidence, nature and causes of injuries".
Blackburn's Mark Hughes was suitably impressed with Salzburg's pitch. "It's a surface that shouldn't pose any problems for us," said Hughes of the Bull Arena turf. "It's not like the plastic pitches seen in the 1980s, which were just a green carpet on a bed of concrete."
But anecdotal evidence suggests there may still be cause for concern. Recently a city banker threatened to sue Nike after he shattered his fibula and dislocated his ankle when the studs on his new boots got caught in the turf on a recent model of artificial pitch, despite being specifically recommended for such surfaces. In the professional ranks, former Manchester City defender Gerard Wiekens has blamed a leg break suffered while playing for BV Veendam in 2005 on an artificial pitch, and has subsequently refused to play further games on the surface.
Injuries may well prove the make-or-break issue for the future success of artificial turf, and the Professional Footballers' Association maintains that the studies conducted so far have been on too short-term a basis to draw any firm conclusions.
Clubs that have made the switch, however, have been pleased with their results. The benefits are clear: artificial pitches are cheap and easy to maintain, and play just as well at any time of the year, in any weather. They also do not need to recover in the same way that grass does, and can therefore be rented out when not in use by the owner.
"We were making two or three thousand pounds a week, plus further income from the bar afterwards," says Dunfermline chairman John Yorkston, whose team used an artificial pitch during the 2004-05 season. "It also encourages good football; there's no unnatural bounces and there were no more missed passes than normal."
Dunfermline were eventually forced to dig up their playing field and replace it with grass due to objections from other SPL clubs, many of whose players felt the surface was unrealistic and dangerous, but the Pars' turf represented an earlier stage in artificial turf development, and bore little resemblance to current top-end models.
In England, for the time being, professional football has adopted a watching brief. The use of artificial pitches is illegal in both Premier League and Football League games, as well as in the FA Cup and the FA Vase, though they are allowed in the FA Trophy and will be approved in principle for the Vase from the 2007-08 season. Whether or not things go any further than that depends, in great part, on the clubs themselves.
"We have a club-made rule-book," says Premier League spokesman Dan Johnson. "If two-thirds of clubs wanted to allow artificial pitches, and studies showed it would be safe to do so, then we could go ahead and do it." The same is true in the Football League, but neither body has been approached formally on the matter by any of its members.
"There is something of a natural conservatism in this country," adds Football League spokesman John Nagle. "But there is nothing to stop a club putting it forward."
The lead may come from Europe. Most of the continent's elite now have at least one such pitch at their training grounds, and some academy players have grown up on them. Spartak Moscow, Red Bull Salzburg and Switzerland's Young Boys Bern, meanwhile, head up a growing list of second-tier teams who have already converted to artificial turf in their home stadia.
FieldTurf president John Gilman is bullish. "It's total stupidity to build a $300m stadium and then use it only once every two weeks," he insists. "It will take two or so teams at the top putting it in and then there will be a groundswell."
For better or worse, in today's ultra-competitive financial marketplace, he might just be right.
