The EFL has announced the winners of the Grounds Team of the Season award for 2016/17 in each of the three divisions – with Derby County’s playing surface listed as ‘highly commended’.
The awards recognise the importance of the quality of pitches for professional football and acknowledge the clubs and their ground staff who consistently produce the best playing surfaces in the EFL.In the Sky Bet Championship, Aston Villa win the award for producing a perfect pitch at Villa Park this season. Both Derby and Newcastle United are both highly commended.
Sky Bet Championship
Winner: Aston Villa
Highly Commended: Derby County
Highly Commended: Newcastle United
The Pride Stadium playing surface, as well as four pitches at the Training Centre, were revamped last summer using the new British reinforced natural grass SISGRASS, after the club linked up with SIS Pitches.
The installation of the SISGRASS pitch saw Derby become the first club in the UK to use such a surface at a competitive level.
SISGRASS involves injecting, or ‘stitching’, more than 240 million lengths of synthetic yarn directly into a pitch – a total of 150 miles – which provide a critical anchor point for natural grass roots to bind onto.
The EFL's Grounds Team of the Season Awards are determined initially using marks from referees and away managers for each Sky Bet EFL game and are then followed by detailed pitch inspections and a review of management operations.
These visits were carried out by Dr Stephen Baker, Head of Sports Surface Technology at the Sports Turf Research Institute (STRI).
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