Fieldturf history

An alternative solution was urgently needed, so the stadium owners and engineers decided to try a new artificial playing surface called ChemGrass that was fist installed at Moses Brown School in Rhode Island in 1964.

Synthetic sports turf has come along way since the first plastic fields were introduced in 1965.

On July 25, 1967, a patent was issued for artificial turf by the United States Patent and Trademark Office and synthetic turf was officially “born.”

1969: Franklin Field, the gridiron stadium of the University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, switched from grass to artificial turf.

In the 1970’s, the second generation of artificial turf was introduced as “shag turf.” The new yarns were made of polypropylene and proved to be less abrasive than its first generation predecessor.

In the mid-1990’s, third generation of artificial turf made its way to the lime light by featuring polyethylene yarn fibers along with many revolutionary improvements to the general turf system.

Although second generation turf eventually proved to be acceptable for sports like field hockey, it was less suitable for sports like soccer as the playing characteristics and the actual ball behavior did not match the capabilities of natural grass. It was not until 1996 that a synthetic turf soccer field proved to be truly suitable for the sport.

Early 2000’s: New artificial playing surfaces using sand and/or rubber infill were developed.

2001: FIFA launches its FIFA Quality Concept for Synthetic fields

2005–06: UEFA announced that approved artificial surfaces were permitted in their competitions

2007–08: Full international fixture for the European Championships played an artificial surface at the Luzhniki Stadium in Moscow.