Time when football players in Vienna complaint about problems with ankles, aching knees or about femoral grazes is all over now! 13 obsolete artificial turf fields (on picture: Marswiese, 1170 Vienna) got fit up with the new generation of artificial green, which is resilient and easy on ankles, knees and back…

…due to good steaming, just as it is playable at its best on every weather condition. The Vienna city leaguer Post SV (on picture: Alen Selmanovic) also changed its obsolete artificial turf into an improved artificial turf field out of the new generation.
Furthermore there were built up 25 complete new sports grounds in Vienna. Installation of the underground as well as application of the drainage and the irrigation construction takes approximately 4 to 6 weeks. The simple exchange of an old “concrete meadow” – how the obsolete artificial turf fields are called affectionately by Vienna´s football players – lasts marginal 3 weeks.

The new generation of artificial turf fields should be played with special footwear, for the reason of possible damaging the artificial green by using shoes with knops – even if it seems to be a bit harder to play with normal artificial turf shoes. However, in the opinion of ex-Gersthof- and current Furtuna-Wien-player Wolfgang Slezak the new generation offers many advantages to the football players. In former times he had to struggle with hurting calves and thighs when training on the old kind of artificial football grounds. He also reported that many of his play mates were lamenting about problems with ankles and ligaments what would be a thing of the past by now. In contrast to the new generation, older artificial turf fields offer speedier playing characteristics, thereby technical mistakes are more conspicuous, as well as – according to Wolfgang Slezak - the passing game have to be coordinated exactly to avoid “bad pass orgies”. The improved new turf fields are behaving slowlier, just as the football doesn´t bounce as high by reason of the good underground steaming – consisting of 81 tonnes of black rubber granulate per football court with proportion of 90 to 60 meters.

Literary source: `Sport in Wien´ NR.26, 26.August 2008.

Read original article `Sport in Wien´ as pdf-file in German language Plätze der neuen Generation in Wien