Astro Turf, the forerunner of today's artificial grass, was patented in the USA in 1967. At the time it most definitely looked like a synthetic surface, but recent advances in technology have led to the development of a series of artificial grass products that are more natural looking and also provide a better surface for leisure purposes.

Artificial grass is well-known for providing alternative sports surfaces, especially for indoor arenas, in which it would be difficult to successfully cultivate a natural grass playing surface. Today it is also being more widely used throughout the world for decorative and domestic residential purposes.

Indeed, baseball and American football were the first two sports to widely use Astro Turf as a synthetic playing surface when it was installed in the Houston Astrodome during the 1960s. At the time both Houston professional sports franchises - gridiron's Houston Oilers and Major League Baseball's Astros - played at the stadium with spectators' seating being rapidly re-organised depending upon which sport featured in the venue.

However, first generation Astro Turf was widely criticised by players for not providing enough give and was likened to playing on concrete, leading to serious compression injuries and its constant redevelopment in order to make the surfaces more suitable for contact sports. Early versions of the product also proved unsuitable for outdoor use as the fibres used were not resistant enough to climatic conditions.

However slightly more than 40 years on, technology has allowed the development of artificial grass surfaces that can not only withstand all the rigours of sporting use but also look decorative and at first glance cannot be easily distinguished from real grass. That means that not only does it provide a real alternative to grass for sporting use, it can also be used for external residential developments.

Available in a wide range of colours, textures and finishes the latest artificial grass is also U.V. stabilised meaning that, unlike its forerunners, it will not fade. Many of the modern products take out all the hard work of looking after an extensive lawn and so are known as ‘lazy' grasses; no cutting, no weeding and no watering required!

For sportsmen the advances in technology mean that they no longer have to suffer grazes, burns or compacted knees when playing on an artificial grass surface. Even the uneven bounce of a football, which was the main reason why the brief experiment in Astro Turf pitches in the UK failed, is no longer a problem; meaning that the FA may overturn their objections to artificial surfaces and we could see them return in the UK.

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