30 Years Ago Today: QPR Announce "Going Plastic"

Well they were used over here for baseball,and for football. Better insulated but caused baseball matches to see balls reach the fence like a billiard ball. Eventually caused too many joint injuries and
got so hot in St, Louis, other red hot summer cities that players were on the broil for hours and umpires would have to take heat breaks. Only two left now, one you cant grow grass in Florida and Toronto which has
tons of sponge but looks like raw cabbage. NFL has a few but injuries are harder, concussions are more severe and torn cartilage abundance. When you get your cleats stuck in the rug as its called the knee gives and next time its hello cruciates I knew thee well.

Video of our plastic
www.itnsource.com/shotlist//ITN/1981/09/01/AS010981001/?s=qpr

Played on it a few times. I had serious burn marks on my legs. Bloody painful.

In 1988 I was sent by the club a folder inscribed QPR "a piece of history". Inside is a piece of the artificial pitch.

RANGERS OMNITURF PITCH-- 1981/88
Before Rangers installed their new Omniturf pitch in Summer 1981 their old grass pitch was one of the worst in the Football League. Game after game was postponed in bad weather and it was even felt that the sub-standard pitch cost Rangers major honours.
From the time an artificial playing surface was installed until the day it was taken up in April 1988 not a single match was postponed due to bad weather. Games took place regulary and indeed the programme became non-stop as Rangers were able to hire the pitch out for all manner of outside fixtures. The Omniturf pitch was eventually in use seven days a week and often several times a day- the playing surface was able to cope with everything.
Rangers also took advantage of their new facility to stage many different events. American Football:Rugby:Hockey:Pop Concerts and Religious Festivals all came to Rangers Stadium and brought tes of thousands of newcomers to Shepherd,s Bush. The highlight of these special attractions was on 8th June 1985 when Barry McGuigan took the Featherweight Boxing Championship of the World from Eusebio Pedroza on a boxing ring specially constructed in the centre of the pitch. Rangers initiative in installing such a playing surface spread throughout the Football League and clubs im Lower Divisions eventually began to rely on the income they obtained from their own artificial pitches for financial survival. Unfortunately, not all major clubs in the First Division of the League supported the innovation. When, eventually, the Football Association ruled that Rangers could not compete in the Football Association Challenge Cup with such a pitch, the club reluctantly decided to remove it. The seven years when Omniturf was installed at Rangers Stadium were unforgettable ones, however, and created a new chapter in soccer history.

First game 1-9-81 v Luton Town. Lost 1-2

Final game 23-4-88 v Sheffield Wednesday Drew 1-1

Well mates for all its faults, it got us to our first Cup Final and a replay. None before nor since.

It could have been worse, they could have decided on an inflatable ground.

In fact there was once an inflatable ground with an inflatable manager, inflatable staff, inflatable players and inflatable stands.

One day an inflatable player gets into trouble for bringing a pin to the ground. The manager takes him aside and says, " you,ve let me down, you,ve let yourself down, you,ve let the whole club down". ;D

QPR Official Site "Potted History of QPR"

".... In 1981/82 QPR became the first League club to replace grass with an artificial playing surface..."
www.qpr.co.uk/page/History/0,,10373,00.html


David Lacey/The Guardian - Saturday 13 October 2007

The pitch may be artificial but the need for a point is genuine

Even before the season began it was obvious that England's chances of qualifying for next summer's European Championship would depend to a large extent on getting the right result against Russia in Moscow. All that has changed is the definition of what the right result would be. Now a draw on Wednesday will probably suffice, assuming England have beaten Estonia again in the meantime.

Last month's 3-0 victory over the Russians at Wembley eased fears that Steve McClaren's team will miss out on Euro 2008, although a few niggles remain: what part of Michael Owen will break down next, for example, or can Paul Robinson avoid keeping goal in the spirit of Anne Robinson - "You are the weakest link, goodbye!"?

Perhaps the greatest fear, however, concerns not the form and fitness of the players but the fact that they will be playing on an artificial pitch at the Luzhniki Stadium. While modern footballers may occasionally train on synthetic surfaces, few if any are accustomed to playing competitive matches on anything but grass.

Since losing at Wembley, moreover, the Russians have decided against having their pitch relaid, which suggests they feel they might enjoy something more than normal home advantage. England may have no problems readjusting but those of their supporters who can recall the farce that ensued when a handful of Football League clubs went over to plastic in the 80s will still have misgivings.

Queens Park Rangers thought they were on to a good thing when they dug up the grass at Loftus Road in 1981 and replaced it with something called, rather ominously, Omniturf. Rangers' manager at the time was Terry Venables who 10 years earlier, when he was a QPR player, had co-authored, with Gordon Williams, a futuristic football novel entitled They Used To Play On Grass.

In setting the scene at a fictitious club known as the Commoners the book showed admirable prescience when describing the look of a future stadium: "The old architecture of soccer, the grim shabbiness of the corrugated iron age had gone . . . there were now massive cantilever stands . . . their apparently unsupported roofs jutting dramatically into the blue sky . . ." But in the next paragraph it announced that "even the grass had gone. Commoners had been one of the last clubs in the First Division to install the new plastic turf." That bit the story got wrong.

Certainly there was a case in the early 80s for experimenting with all-weather pitches at League grounds, too many of which became swamps or ice rinks in winter. Drainage was often poor, undersoil heating rare, and groundsmen struggled to keep up with the demands made of their expertise by the weather and sheer wear and tear. On reflection a better title for the Venables-Williams tome would have been They Used To Play On Mud.

The innovation at Loftus Road attracted keen interest which quickly evaporated when matches began to be played on it, for while the ball ran smoothly enough over the hard surface it took off like a wild thing when it was allowed to bounce. This confused defenders and goalkeepers in particular and everybody experienced difficulty when it came to stopping and turning.

It was said that the Omniturf was not to blame, that the fault lay with having the wrong sort of underlay. Either way some of the games at Loftus Road became unwatchable.

There was no great rush to follow suit. The artificial pitches introduced at Preston, Oldham and Luton played better than the original but even then Everton's Kevin Ratcliffe left Kenilworth Road after one game saying that if he had to perform regularly in such conditions it would shorten his career by five years. Eventually the risk of injuries to players, especially to knees and ankles, persuaded the FA to ban plastic pitches in 1988. The international bodies, Fifa and Uefa, did likewise.

More recently, however, improved technology in the production of synthetic surfaces has forced a rethink. Two seasons ago Uefa allowed them back into their competitions, with Russia getting the nod because of the possibility of freezing conditions in Moscow. Dunfermline installed an artificial surface in 2003 and were happy enough to play on it but complaints from visiting clubs, in particular Rangers and Celtic, persuaded the Scottish FA to ban plastic pitches two years later.

Maybe, given the excellence of most playing surfaces in the Premier League, England will find little difference in the way the ball runs on Wednesday and it is safe to assume that the bounce will be more rational than it was at Loftus Road. Presumably they do not lay out red carpets in Moscow any more. Just so long as everyone gets a decent rub of the green.

www.guardian.co.uk/football/2007/oct/13/sport.comment2

Thats right and despite the pitch being 'full of people' still managed to daub 'Perry Buckland is Innoccent' (inmate at the Scrubs whom I think was serving time for 'Ireland related activities' (apologies to anyone here if this is factually incorrect - no offence meant!) in white paint on the pitch right in front of the TV gantry........before the Boxing Day match with Chelsea..........

I think a few players have cited the plastic as a factor in curtailing their careers....

Alan Brazil, Gerry Francis, Tony Currie, Gary Bannister off the top of my head.

Far from being unwatchable, there were some great games on that pitch and not just our victories. 5-5 with Newcastle, 6-0 beating of Chelsea, Spurs playing some of the best football I've ever seen in beating us 5-2. Liverpool never lost a league game on the surface, whereas we always struggled against the long ball sides like Watford and Wimbledon

I also played on that pitch and the one at Bisham Abbey. Loved it, you had to play football. You only did one slide tackle if was not soaked!

I'm in 2 minds about it the whole saga but it has to be acknowledged that artificial turf has improved a hundred fold since we installed it 30 years ago, so reaction to it might be different now.

I do think the "experts" went totally overboard in criticisng the pitch;

I don't think it was the reason for bad football matches - I mean Sam Allerdyce's Bolton played on good old grass when he was in charge there and that football was absolutely dreadful. In short you get good and bad games at any place, at any time - and has nothing to do with anything other than what the clubs produce on the day. As pointed above 5-5 vs Newcastle was hardly anti-football.

Nor do I think it gave us as big an advantage as critics claimed it did. We dropped just about as many points at home during the 2 seasons after it had been installed as it we did in the 2 seasons prior to installation, while our first div form at home on that pitch was patchy from season to season. It did highlight the "clutching at straws syndrome" adopted by many coaches who had to explain away yet another loss against QPR.

I am also convinced that if Utd, Villa, Liverpool or Arsenal had installed an artificlla pitch during that time then the critics would not have been so harsh - and probably would have called it revolutionary and a sign of progress. But because it was mere QPR, then a 2nd div club with an average gate of less than 12k, it had to be condemned out of hand. In the end it just wasn't on for a small club to show up the big ones when it came to new ideas.

In the end I think it was right for QPR to go for it but it was probably an idea at least 15 years ahead of its time. I think there is place for it in the game but so many critics went totally overboard when Rangers, Luton and Preston adopted it that I can't see it ever being used again in England - at least not in the near to mid term future.

By the way we did beat Liverpool on that pitch - and we did it twice in the 85/86 season. Of course critics in Shoot & Match all voiced their displeasure about the pitch and the brand of football when we beat Liverpool in the LC semi-final.

Also think how amazingly-innovative and brave, trend-setters "little QPR" were in those days. Total Kudos to Jim Gregory and Terry Venables.

This is a piece i found in a old fanzine called 'IN THE LOFT'

It doesn't say who the author is so i can't accredit a name to it.
Interesting read, and the stats tell the story.


Drastic on plastic or class on grass? That is the question most people want to know now the dreadful/experimental/crappy plastic pitch has finally been dug up for good. Was it worthwhile? Was it a success? Has the team benefited from it in anyway? There are so many questions people want to know the answer to but it seems nobody really knows the proper answers to. Even QPR haven't said it has been a total success, so just what are the true facts?
It can be said that during the seven seasons QPR have played on the surface, (2 in the 2nd & 5 in the 1st) the team has enjoyed their most successful period in their 106 years of professional football (1 FA cup final, 1 milk cup final, 2nd division champions, European football, top six in the first division twice) This may seem good, but in between all this, inconsistency reigned.
Shown below are QPR's home and away records from the seven years the plastic pitch was used and from the seven years before, when QPR played on grass.







*FIGURES SHOWN ARE THOSE FROM LEAGUE GAMES ONLY.

So these facts clearly indicate that both the home and away form of QPR greatly improved during the plastic years even though they played less games during this period. Despite this, no one seems sorry it's going.

off the subject of this thread, (i can't find the one it relates to, sorry!) in the same fanzine 'IN THE LOFT' which i posted about above, there is a article on increasing the capacity of LR, and a interesting fact that i was not aware of, (maybe some members on here were aware) is that up until 1988,(could be later) behind the newly developed away end, there still stood the old terracing, still in perfect condition.
The article went on to say that the new away end should have been built behind the existing terracing, increasing the capacity by 3000.

not a lot , i know, but chance missed at the old school end.