So I was watching some footage of premiership football from the 90s and the pitches were muddy and the players were muddy when getting up after tackling etc.
You watch professional football from decades earlier and the are even more muddy.
Now if you stick a match on, after an unbelievable wet winter and spring, the pitches at St James’s, Anfield, old Trafford are immaculate and the players walk off looking like they don’t even need to wash thier kits.
What’s changed?
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Drainage, millions have been spent installing drains under the soil to stop water pooling on the pitch, in addition the turf is re-laid on a regular basis to stop the area around the goals becoming a bare patch of mud.
Most elite level pitches are actually a hybrid of real and artificial grass. The artificial fibres allow the natural grass roots to intertwine, providing more support and making them more durable to wear.
This, plus better cover, maintenance and drainage means pitches are in much better condition
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/GrassMaster
They are now laid in sand, not soil. Far easier to pull it up and replace the turf.
Sand has much better drainage than soil.
[FIFA certified pitch drainage](https://youtu.be/erpWWquHMJo?si=gwanxtqXQSV_1heC)
[Timelapse of a 5G pitch installation.](https://youtu.be/HCAw3WlqUJw?si=TbQmHe9vmKl97NM4) Notice the drainage mats, sand, and a thin layer of turf
I miss the sodden pitches. Derby’s Baseball Ground in early 80s winters was a thing of beauty
I don’t know if hybrid grass has nixed this practice, but I seem to remember seeing an array of lights on a gantry which was slowly moved across the pitch between games. The lights were tuned to the UVA spectrum and encouraged grass to grow in super quick time, hence any ‘bald’ or muddy patches of turf could be seeded and regrown inbetween matches.
Oh you think the pitches were muddy in the 90s eh? Try the 70s…
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ajFelpKD7g](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ajFelpKD7g)
Teams also now use lighting to help the grass grow which is especially helpful in the winter months.
I think they use special dirts instead of fine clays. Also less organics that can dissolve in water to form mud. Think of wet sand on a beach, it brushes off
Not exactly an answer to the question but somebody I studied with at university did his undergrad in biology and then a phd and then worked for the “Sports Turf Research Institute”… so I can only imagine a lot of money and effort go in to that very specific field (lol.)
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