Tottenham Hotspur Stadium “To Dare Is To Do”

April 16, 2020 · Sports Labs

They say in parts of North London “To Dare is to Do” When Tottenham Hotspur FC dared to dive into the unknown last Autumn, in their brand new 62,000 capacity Stadium, hosting a Champions League match, 2 x NFL London Games and a Premier League home game all within a 19 day period on two separate playing surfaces. ProPitch and Sports Labs were on hand to test and assist in a truly unique project.

ProPitch have been working with the North London Club since the end of the 2018/19 season undertaking pitch assessments on the stadium pitch at key stages throughout the season, combined with self-assessments undertaken by the ground staff lead by Wayne Billing and Gary Lee. The Grounds care team were recently awarded the Grounds Management Association, Professional Grounds Team of the year award.

Tottenham’s project brief was to provide testing and consultancy services for both the natural turf and the artificial turf playing surface that is housed in the stadium below the grass.

The first stadium in the world to have two playing surfaces specifically designed for two sperate sports.

In the Lead up to the NFL games ProPitch consultants Dean Gilasbey a fellow GMA award winner and Ian Craig undertook ProPitch 18 assessments on the playing surface to monitor and bench mark the performance of the playing surface, a consistent 5 star performer throughout the early season and in the lead up to the NFL games. This posed a real challenge for Wayne, Gary and the Spurs team. How do you park a world class playing surface in an underground car park for 16 days and bring it out in elite condition for a home Premier league game 3 days later?

The answer a careful balance of technology, skill, measurement and management of the playing surface. The Pitch is quite literally housed in an underground car park while the stadium is transformed into NFL mode. The ‘pitch pocket’ sits under the UK’s largest single tier stand, capable of housing 17,500 fans. It hosts all the technology required to keep the natural turf surface alive, UV lights, irrigation system, robotic mowers and a ProPitch self-assessment test kit!

Continually testing and monitoring the surface using a range of tools and techniques finely tuned by the Grounds staff, the pitch managed to come out of storage with little to no effect to the appearance and playing characteristics, and better still it maintained its 5-star performance, throughout.

In between the two football games the stadium went through a transformation like no other, from Premier League to NFL in a few days.

The natural turf surface rolled out on 3 massive trays and into storage and exposed the artificial turf surface below. The huge trays roll out on 9 rails all of which had to be covered with the same artificial turf surface to provide a surface that the very best American Footballers would be comfortable on, in an already “foreign” environment.

The process required the skill and expertise of not only the Ground staff but also a highly skilled team assembled by the Club. Hewitt’s Sports Turf providing the installation of the turf, Technical Surfaces the maintenance expertise and Sports Labs testing and general consultancy services.

The Champions League game finished at 2200 Hours on the 1st October and the NFL pitch had to be handed over for the teams to practice on at 0800 on Friday 4th October. A massive challenge for all involved to turn around the pitch and the stadium in such a short space of time.

As for the natural turf surface the pitch was found to perform to the highest standard, meeting all the NFL requirements and even the Clubs own additional quality control tests. Drawing praise from the Media and most importantly the players, Derek Carr, Oakland Raiders QB, describing the venue perfectly. “Everything about it is first class” …….” This is definitely one of, if not the best stadiums I've ever been at in my life”

The two-week period was a perfect example of the importance of data collection and on-site measurements in the management of both Natural and artificial turf.