Under-soil heating is a method used in various sports stadia (with a grass surface) which heats the underside of the pitch to avoid any elements from bad weather, such as snow and ice, from building up and ultimately helps the club avoid having to postpone any matches. Most

English Premier League The Premier League (legal name: The Football Association Premier League Limited) is the highest level of the men's English football league system. Contested by 20 clubs, it operates on a system of promotion and relegation with the English Foo ...

teams now have this installed in their stadium. While it is not an official requirement, it avoids any financial loss that a club might face in having to postpone any matches due to bad weather. The first ground in

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...

to have under-soil heating installed was

Goodison Park Goodison Park is a association football, football stadium in the Walton, Liverpool, Walton area of Liverpool, England. It has been the home stadium of Premier League club Everton F.C. since its completion in 1892. Located in a residential area ...

in 1958. The pitch at Old Trafford has of under-soil heating and at Elland Road there is an under-soil heating system installed beneath the surface, consisting of 59 miles (95 km) of piping. In

Germany Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, and the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is situated betwe ...

under-soil heating is mandatory for division 1 and 2

Bundesliga The Bundesliga (; ), sometimes referred to as the Fußball-Bundesliga () or 1. Bundesliga (), is a professional association football league in Germany. At the top of the German football league system, the Bundesliga is Germany's primary footba ...

clubs. The first ground to have it installed was the Olympic Stadium of Munich in 1972. In the

Czech Republic The Czech Republic, or simply Czechia, is a landlocked country in Central Europe. Historically known as Bohemia, it is bordered by Austria to the south, Germany to the west, Poland to the northeast, and Slovakia to the southeast. The ...

, despite the league having a winter break, the

Czech First League The Czech First League, known as the Fortuna liga for sponsorship reasons, is a Czech professional league for football clubs. At the top of the Czech football league system, it is the country's primary football competition. Seasons typically r ...

requires all participating teams to play on surfaces with under-soil heating. Several

American football American football (referred to simply as football in the United States and Canada), also known as gridiron, is a team sport played by two teams of eleven players on a rectangular field with goalposts at each end. The offense, the team wi ...

teams in the

National Football League The National Football League (NFL) is a professional American football league that consists of 32 teams, divided equally between the American Football Conference (AFC) and the National Football Conference (NFC). The NFL is one of the ...

also have such a system installed. With American football, it is more a matter of player safety, since NFL games are never postponed on account of cold weather. There have been numerous occasions where under-soil heating's effectiveness has been questioned. One notable incident happened on December 27, 2005 when three stadia in the FA Premier League, supposedly equipped with under-soil heating, failed to stop their pitches being covered in thick snow - this led to the matches being postponed. Subsequently, on January 1, 2006, the Premier League investigated as to why the pitches at Macron Stadium ( Bolton Wanderers), Ewood Park (

Blackburn Rovers Blackburn Rovers Football Club is a professional football club, based in Blackburn, Lancashire, England, which competes in the , the second tier of the English football league system. They have played home matches at Ewood Park since 1890. Th ...

) and St. James' Park ( Newcastle United) were not able to repel the snow. In the U.S., a notable example of the failure of an under-soil heating system occurred in 1967, when a newly installed system at

Lambeau Field Lambeau Field is an outdoor athletic stadium in the north central United States, located in Green Bay, Wisconsin. The home field of the Green Bay Packers of the National Football League (NFL), it opened in 1957 as City Stadium, replacing ...

in Green Bay, Wisconsin failed before the NFL Championship game. The game would go on to be remembered as the "Ice Bowl".

References

External links

Association football terminology {{sport-stub