Dorchester Town FC – the avenue stadium

McArdle Sport Tec appointed as Principle Contractor to install the new Artificial Grass Pitch at The Avenue Stadium.

Founded in 1880, Dorchester Town Football Club are a semi-professional football club playing in the Southern League Premier South; based at The Avenue Stadium – land which is owned by the Duchy of Cornwall.

The club have worked extremely hard to make this 3G pitch project possible with the vision of creating a community football hub & increasing the available playing hours to 80 hours per week, opening further opportunities for new teams and offering summer football camps.

3G AGP project history:

The project was funded through a Section 106 grant from West Dorset District Council, awarding the club 50% of the money they needed for a new 3G pitch; this was fantastic news for the club. They were left with the challenge of raising an additional £252,000.00 which is no small feat; some of the funds were already in place, but the remainder was reliant on successful grants and fundraising.

‘Pitch for the community’ campaign:

The club raised an amazing £21,000 through a unique ‘pitch for the community’ crowdfunding campaign, selling virtual squares of the artificial 3G pitch in exchange for sponsorship. This proved to be a massive success and all original 100 squares were sold out in 3 days, the club decided to create 40 additional squares for sponsorship due to its popularity. Donations for this campaign were matched by Dorchester Town Council and Dorset County Council, resulting in each £50 ‘3G pitch square’ increasing to £150.

McArdle Sport Tec were delighted to be awarded this contract and install this influential 3G pitch, converting the stadium’s natural turf grass to a state of the art 8424m2 3rd generation football pitch.

The club opted for the unique TigerTurf Ecocept engineered performance base layer.

This innovative porous pavement, specifically developed for synthetic turf athletic playing surfaces, integrates seamlessly with the synthetic turf enhancing biomechanical performance.

Ecocept combines several critical functions in one layer:
– Structural stability in a fully bound and stabilised base.
– Consistent shock absorbency across the entire field, reduced amount of infill and infill splash.
– Shock absorbency that meets FIFA requirements.