ABSTRACT
The soils and drainage system of a football pitch control the number of games the pitch can sustain during a season, the playing quality of the surface and the risk of cancellations because of adverse weather conditions. Traditional construction techniques have usually been restricted to adding a pipe drainage system to the native soil. On most soils heavy usage will cause compaction in the surface layer and, in particular, the volume of large soil pores will be reduced. This will limit rates of water infiltration (Canaway, 1978), lead to an unfavourable environment for the grass roots (van Wijk et al., 1977) and cause poor playing conditions (Baker and Isaac, 1987b). Indeed, for Local Authority sports grounds, where most of the pitches are restricted to pipe drainage systems, Ward (1983) found that 44% of the pitches had a drainage problem and on 20% of pitches there were regular cancellations of matches between November and March.
