Plastic turf is right up there alongside a punch on the nose for wearing the wrong coloured scarf when it comes to disappeared football stuff we’re actually pleased to see the back of….
How I hated going up to Oldham, where Andy Ritchie and Roger Palmer would run rings round us on their lino pitch.
And how I loathed Luton, who not only played on Astroturf but also banned away fans. How much advantage did they need?
How I mourned when my favourite player, Alan Young, twisted his knee on the unyielding artificial grass at Loftus Road and was never quite the same again.
And how I cheered when I went to see QPR v Aston Villa, and a Brummie fan marched down the terraces to the front wall and deposited a large square of genuine turf on top of the plastic pitch.
Nature knows best…
Send your memories of non fantastic plastic to: garysilke@sky.com
If you too were plunged into despair by astroturf then you should probably buy the retro-footy-grumble-fest ‘Got, Not Got’… runner-up in this year’s Footy Book of the Year, and this Xmas’s must-have stocking filler. Available from branches of WH Smith and Waterstones or online here…
