If we are the first to have an artificial pitch then its not like either of those. It will be totally artificial not a mix of artificial and proper grass.

Its his job to ask the questions others will be thinking. If you had to switch off then you need to start taking medication.

Fantastic idea and an extremely forward thinking move regarding a number of aspects away from just the match day use of the pitch.

At least yer man SOC is playing the right game when it comes to 'pumping' money into a Club. It's clearly a worth while and benefit gaining scheme which will help the Vikings and the local area into the future and beyond. It's not just ing money away.

No it isn't.

I havn't watched it yet, but now i'm dreading it.

Normal grass does not grow very well there for some reason!

From how the Widnes guy described it, it's not part real and part artificial. It's made of a sand and rubber base with individual plastic blades of grass coming out at random like real grass. It has all year round performance at the same level and they claim that water does not affect it as it drains through and is taken out from underneath.

I must admit I'm in Eddie's shoes. I've never played on a modern artificial pitch and I still have the scars on my body from when I played football on the astro at school. Apparantly these pitches give if you stamp your foot into them, they give if you twist your foot on it, reducing ankle injuries. But they don't feel spongy or bouncy.

It's safe to say most people won't have walked on a pitch like this. It'll still have that fear factor for players. I used to be terrified of sliding on an old astro, I can't imagine it will be easy to commit to sliding on these pitches like you can on real grass.

But if they perform like Widnes claim, these could become widespread in the sport and across football as well.

Normal grass would wither with fear as soon as it was tread by o'connors Titans only 'Future Grass' can handle the mighty Vikings

Can someone tell me what the 'intelligent' in i-grass means? What does the grass do intelligently?

It should not be a problem for any of the N West teams as they have all trained on this pitch at Leigh East

They are very good , but still not quite real grass

It plays your MP3's for you.

If you plug an i-phone into it, it downloads pictures to your C drive automtically.

It cleans itself after st heleners have been on it!