Artificial Turf Not As Good A Bet As Grass Says Speed

Steve Speed the veteran groundsman from famed English club Port Vale has featured in an advert for “English Grass” a product Swedish gambling giant Svenska Spel hopes will change their countrymen’s minds on the subject of artificial turf.

Convincing me that grass is better than anything artificial is going to be a very short conversation. It would very much be preaching to the choir, although any choir with my throat would be all but inaudible through the gales of coughing, invisible due to the smoke and possibly under investigation for minor drug offenses. Convincing those that like to bet on sport in Sweden that grass is better than artificial turf seems to require more effort however.

New Turf Wars In Football?

• Svenska Spel sell English Grass
• Swedish advert for product
• Port Vale Groundsman featured

This is evidenced by the advert released by Svenska Spel this week in which the virtues of a natural grass playing surface are extolled by none other than the long standing groundsman from Port Vale, Steve Speed. Now Steve Speed might be a bit of legend in Port Vale having worked there for thirty odd years, but it was his expertise in sorting out tricky conditions for which the Swedes wanted his seal of approval.

https://youtube.com/watch?v=-cRIIBT3b0E

A lot of clubs in Sweden use artificial turf but Svenska Spel is on a mission to change that with a new product called “English Grass” which it is marketing in the country. Steve Speed’s endorsement perhaps not as useful as his performance on their television commercial. Say what you will but Steve lends it an air of gravitas that should have even the most die hard supporters of plastic pitches to reconsider their position.

English Grass Vs Artificial Turf

Artificial turf is, of course, an abomination that has for too long haunted the dark corners of football. The controversy of their first introduction to the top flight of English football was a running tabloid feature for a while, and local protests about its use were common at the outset. Sold as the surface of the future it was quickly loathed by anyone with sense. Football is played on grass, not artificial fibres, and that it is still permitted is a bit of a travesty.

Now don’t get me wrong, I realize that for some of the lower divisions it might be necessary to save on upkeep, wear and tear, things of that ilk, but for clubs in the top flight of football to be using these ghastly man-made surfaces is just plain wrong. It isn’t just the inordinate number of injuries players sustain, nor even the way the ball moves differently on the bounce, but more that it provides no give when conditions turn nasty.

That the Women’s World Cup in Canada this year featured such pitches was an all but an insult to the players from the sport so ably led by Sepp Blatter who is famed for thinking female players should simply wear less to attract a bigger audience. Steve Speed would have had no truck with that, and hopefully neither will the next crop of FIFA president candidates, although I for one wouldn’t be gambling news of a sudden lack of sexism is going to hit the headlines even after February’s vote. Especially since the Third World’s delegates will be tipping the scales.

Svenska Spel Comes Out Against Artificial Turf

Precisely what Svenka Spel hopes to achieve with this campaign is rather hard to fathom. Those with artificial pitches are actually quite unlikely to rip up their artificial turf and plant seed instead, the cost alone making it quite prohibitive, and whilst this might stave off some from going manmade in the future the overall scheme seems a bit overblown. Port Vale’s groundsman hardly famed in Sweden to begin with.

Svenska Spel is the combination that came out of the two major lottery companies in Sweden, and they still control a monopoly over gambling in Sweden although this is somewhat anachronistic these days with sites like ComeOn! Sportsbook freely available to anyone with the internet. That they pop up with a campaign to sell grass seed somewhat incongruous, Steve Speed’s addition just making it all the more odd.

If you’re Swedish gambling laws of economics can be trumped by slick marketing and a fifty three year old groundsman from Port Vale you might be in for a disappointment. The product is likely to be built on the idea of the green green grass of England, summoning up all those connotations, but in the end is probably destined to be more commonly seen on the laws of people’s gardens than the pitches of professional footballers who have already swapped over to artificial turf.