ASTON UNIVERSITY

In 2015, McArdle were selected to construct a new all-weather pitch at Aston University in Birmingham.

The University were successful in applying for a funding grant of £247,000 from Sport England to expand the number of community sport programmes the university could deliver with the aim to increase the number of 14-25 year olds regularly participating in sport in the area.

The new all-weather pitch was to replace Aston University’s most widely used pitch which, after 10 years of use, was beginning to look tired and had some drainage problems. The new pitch had to be suitable primarily for hockey and also football, with each sport placing very different demands on the surface.

The university worked with a consultant who specified TigerTurf’s Evo Pro sand-dressed hockey surface as the perfect solution to bridge this gap, while offering a long-lasting pitch able to cope with a high level of use.

Clive Eals, project manager for the Estates and Capital Development department at Aston University, commented:

“The new synthetic hockey pitch looks outstanding. Whereas the old hockey pitch had a longer length and rubber crumb infill which wasn’t ideal for playing hockey, the new artificial surface is made with a sand infill – although you wouldn’t know it as you have to go looking for the sand.

“It’s a beautiful, even surface and it just makes you to want to get out there and play sport, which is what we want for our students and the community.”