Our Sports Reporter By Armstrong Vaz [Gomantak Times] Margao:- Chowgule College Margao in south Goa is to get a state-of-the-art modern worldclass artificial synthetic grass pitch, which will be the first of its kind in India. It also becomes the first college in India to get such a pitch.
Thanks to Chowgule group of companies who have pulled in Rs 30 million for the project, it was completed on January 5, 2006. The ground is to be inaugurated in the coming days. We at GT look into the details of what goes into the preparation and other details of the unique project in the state. Suravaran Marketing, Hyderabad, has installed the synthetic turf at Chowgule's. The FieldTurf concept, according to experts, is the best surface for athletic contests, besides for other sports like American football, soccer, rugby, lacrosse, baseball, and softball. Synthetic turf is like grass, not a carpet. FieldTurf's inventors were sportsmen. They wanted to develop a synthetic system that offered the beneficial bio-mechanical properties of natural grass, combined with the best attributes of a durable synthetic system: all-weather playability, low maintenance, and unlimited playing time. The idea was simple. It looks like grass, feels like grass, and plays like grass. But the technology to make it happen was not simple at all. Initially introduced for tennis and golf, then modified for soccer, and finally perfected even for American football and baseball it has revolutionized the entire world of sport. In the ever growing sport of soccer, in the US and around the world, top leagues and teams practice and play on FieldTurf, including the English and Scottish Premier Leagues; Germany's Bundesliga; Spain's Primera Liga; Japan's JFA; and Russia's Lokomotiv and CSKA. FieldTurf is dramatically different from traditional synthetic turf. The most striking difference is immediately obvious. Instead of a dense, abrasive rug, FieldTurf’s fiber surface is soft, silky -- like new blades of grass in a spring meadow -- say its promoters. Players can slide, tackle and tumble on FieldTurf's unique blend of specially treated polyethylene fibers without fear of abrasions. Rug burns are a thing of the past. The old hatred of 'turf' -- voiced so loudly by players, trainers, coaches -- simply vanishes, a distant memory from the rough "carpet age". But FieldTurf is much more than just the absence of abrasions. Unlike traditional turf, FieldTurf does not rely on an underlying shock pad for safety, resilience and player comfort. Rather, like its natural grass cousin, FieldTurf's grass fibers are surrounded and stabilized by a special blend of "synthetic earth" -- FieldTurf's patented mixture of smooth, rounded silica sand, rubber granules, and Nike Grind made of re-ground athletic shoe material. The rubber granules are a key component. Tire rubber is cryogenically frozen, shattered into smooth, clean, rounded particles, sized and shaped to stay "in suspension" with the sand, which is of a similar size, shape and weight. The sand and rubber are precision layered to guarantee uniformity, with an installation process that is also patented. The result: A stable, resilient, uniform, shock-absorbing surface. FieldTurf is the original and only system emulating natural grass, ideal not only for athletes at the elite level but for everyday athletes. It offers minimal outdoor life-cycle cost. It's also offers, says the team behind it, guaranteed resistance to sunlight (ultra violet radiation degradation). In addition, it's resistant to rot, mold, mildew, foot traffic, hydrolysis, airborne contaminants and microbial attack FieldTurf’s insured warranty provides customers worldwide with protection of $5,000,000 per year. FieldTurf prepays each policy for the life of the warranty -- in advance. Washing away the markings and lines and allowing the water to percolate through the FTCS, keeps the surface texture uniform and always very player friendly.
