Aston Turf

I'm shooting a portrait today at Villa Park, home of Aston Villa Football Club.
It's a small, rather cosy stadium with a nicely coordinated colour scheme, and rather old fashioned charm.

What wasn't old fashioned however, was the pitch. When I first saw these machines I thought they were sprinklers. Then I discovered they were lamps, used to encourage growth of the grass.

This is not the end of the story however. Half the grass is real, the other half artificial. Planted in clumps, as one might a hair transplant, the fake roots go down a good foot below the surface, trimmed carefully on top by the groundsmen. When the real grass is seeded it is surrounded by a protective fence, so that goal mouth mud holes become a thing of the past.

You learn something new every day.