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TigerTurf publishes guide to selecting and maintaining artificial grass tennis courts

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Leading artificial grass manufacturer, TigerTurf UK, has launched a new guide dedicated to helping tennis club managers and school facilities staff through the full specification process of an artificial grass tennis court.

Bringing together the latest thinking from within the industry, TigerTurf’s A break from tradition: how to select and maintain the best artificial grass tennis courts makes the case for investing in an artificial grass facility – and explains how clubs and schools can get the most from their surface once they have invested.

The guide gathers expert opinion on the installation of artificial surfaces, featuring the thoughts of tennis court contractors, Tennis 2000, on the most important considerations for a new installation, a column on choosing suppliers by the Sports and Play Construction Association (SAPCA), and even comment from Tennis Coach Ireland on the playability of artificial surfaces. Those who download the guide will also be able to read about tennis clubs who have successfully installed artificial tennis courts of their own.

The result is a comprehensive look at the reasons why artificial grass is an increasingly popular option within the tennis community, and is designed to help clubs and schools to take advantage of a relatively new, but rapidly evolving market.

Paul Langford, Managing Director at TigerTurf UK, commented: “Tennis is a sport which is developing all the time, and the latest generation of artificial tennis surfaces is furthering this progress no end. So many clubs are looking to do the best thing for members as well as distinguish their facilities from competitors, but it can seem quite a big step without the right information. We’ve produced our guide to put club managers at ease and map out exactly how they can take full advantage of the benefits on offer from an artificial grass court for years to come.”

For more information, or to download the guide, click here.

TigerTurf bolsters overseas operations with new Export Manager

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TigerTurf UK has bolstered support for its overseas operations with the appointment of its first ever Export Sales Manager.

Bringing over 10 years of experience within the sports surfacing sector, David Hook will head up TigerTurf’s newly-expanded export sales team as the business looks to further grow its presence in mainland Europe and the Middle East.

David forged a career in the textile industry through various technical, operational and sales roles, before a love of sport led him to a succession of business development roles in the manufacture of artificial grass. Having developed an eye for improving product quality and business efficiencies, David’s focus then moved on to developing new export sales markets, building sustainable relationships across Europe, Scandinavia and as far afield as Japan and Canada.

David will now be tasked with helping TigerTurf to build on existing partnerships abroad, as well as identifying new opportunities amidst a growing level of global competition. In this he will be supported by Suzi Cowen, who becomes Export Sales Co-ordinator following a successful period strengthening TigerTurf’s landscape sales.

David commented: “The opportunity to represent one of the major brands in the industry was one I couldn’t resist, and I’m delighted to be working within such a strong team backed up by excellent product range and quality of service.

“This is still a relatively new industry with a vast number of opportunities, especially for companies who focus on product development, quality and service. We will be looking to tap into these potential markets, by supplementing strong relationships with continued innovation.”

On the decision to create the new position, Managing Director, Paul Langford, added: “With TigerTurf having established itself in the domestic market, we are seeing an increasing number of opportunities for growth overseas – even during the uncertainty of the Brexit period. David’s experience in this sphere will be invaluable to the business as our focus on export grows and we take advantage of our strong position as a British manufacturer with international support from our parent company, TenCate.”

RadiciGroup takes the field with the Italian National Football Team: new high-performance artificial grass turf at the Coverciano football technical centre

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The innovative made-in-Italy synthetic turf, manufactured with Tessiture Pietro Radici’s Radigreen® yarn, will give the Azzurri footballers excellent performance in all playing conditions.

Tessiture Pietro Radici, the ancestral RadiciGroup company, is the producer of the polyethylene yarn used to manufacture the synthetic turf covering a new eleven-a-side football pitch, inaugurated on Tuesday, 8 September, at the Italian Football Federation’s (FIGC) Federal Technical Centre (CTF) in Coverciano, with a friendly match between the staff of the Federation and some journalists of the sports press. The installation was carried out following the FIGC technical sector’s decision to upgrade one of the CTF football pitches with artificial grass in order to ensure an ideal playable surface in any playing conditions.

The new synthetic turf was manufactured with Radigreen® MFL PE S-CORE yarn: monofilament yarn made of high-performance polymers, delivering high wear resistance, split resistance and playing field uniformity over time. The turf and the whole system were designed and produced by Sofisport, an Italian company specializing in the manufacture, installation and maintenance of artificial grass fields produced with the most up-to-date technologies.

Artificial grass carpet made with Radigreen® MFL PE S-CORE is an invitation to play: it has the look of natural grass at its best, without the high maintenance cost of natural grass. Moreover, the two-colour versions allow manufacturers to successfully reproduce the various green tonalities of natural grass blades, thus making the synthetic turf even more pleasing to the eye.

Radigreen® MFL PE S-CORE is soft and pleasant to the touch like natural grass. Soft, but resistant – it will not cause skin abrasion, yet ensures excellent resilience. Still another advantage of the product is that it retains its characteristics over time. Indeed, before being placed on the market, the product has to pass rigorous tests of resistance to UV rays, weathering, and wear and tear over long periods of time.

With its 75-year history, Tessiture Pietro Radici (TPR) and its 130 employees guarantee competence and reliability in the production of Radigreen® artificial grass yarn for synthetic turf. The TPR production unit is based in Gandino (Bergamo, Italy), alongside its research and development department that supports production by ensuring continual innovation and retention of Radigreen®’s excellent characteristics and sustainability over time.

The realization of the new artificial grass football pitch in Coverciano was a great opportunity to show how an all Italian production chain – from yarn producer to synthetic turf maker – can guarantee efficiency, innovation and product environmental sustainability. A combination of key features that takes on an even greater meaning, since the end product – 100% made in Italy – is a playing field for the Italian national football team.

As always, TPR’s know-how and responsiveness to the needs of a continually evolving market (such as artificial grass) has enabled the firm to meld the high technical performance and playing comfort demanded by its customers into a specific product: Radigreen® MFL PE S-CORE. The yarn delivers exceptional performance in terms of resilience, its capacity to spring back to an upright position after being stepped on. Consequently, ball roll and biomechanical tests show excellent results over time. These characteristics are of the utmost importance for all pitches where the Italian national football team does its training.

I Maestri del Paesaggio http://www.imaestridelpaesaggio.it/2016/green-square/dettaglio/Clubino-Square/?__locale=it

Curtain going up on “I Maestri del Paesaggio”: Radigreen® yarn among the main players at the event

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Time to “Think wild, live green”. Starting 7 September, the limelight is on I Maestri del Paesaggio [Masters of the Landscape], an international event organized by the Arketipos Association and the Municipality of Bergamo. For nineteen days, Bergamo’s Città Alta [Upper Town] is going to be the splendid backdrop for the event, which features some of the top names in international landscape design and their most intriguing works. RadiciGroup’s  iRadigreen® synthetic grass yarn is also playing a lead role in this showcase of Italian excellence and creativity.

As in previous years, I Maestri del Paesaggio is transforming Bergamo into a special international observatory where spectators can view the landscape in its many facets: reflections, provocations and revelations. From 7 to 25 September, the highly topical issue of modern man’s need to connect with nature and make it part of his daily life is going to be the focus of intense thought by some of the most authoritative green architects, garden designers, historians and photographers. Nineteen days of intense cultural excitement, with a packed programme of events and themes: Green Square, Educational, Green Design, Green Fashion, Green Food, Green Show, Kids, Green Tour, music, photography contests, installations and many land-art itineraries. The 2016 installations erected in in Piazza Vecchia and Piazza Mascheroni are based on the creative ideas of sixteen students from Summer School 2015 directed by Stefan Tischer, a German landscape architect of international repute. Tischer and Annacaterina Piras – internationally renowned landscape designer, architect and co-founder with Tischer of the LandWorks-Sardinia international research programme – have, for the occasion, transformed the splendid Città Alta into a stage for nature and beauty. Lucia Nusiner, landscape designer, and Maurizio Quargnale, lighting designer, have made their contribution to the vegetation design and lighting, respectively, of all of Tischer and Piras’ installations.

RadiciGroup products are present in one of these wild installations, namely the one transforming Piazza Mascheroni into a wild game and adventure park, a tiny wild world covered with a living willow dome and a network of lianas, vegetation and suggestive lights. The square is carpeted with synthetic turf made of RadiciGroup’s MY RADIGREEN® yarn and manufactured by the Italian company SIT-IN SPORT, a leading producer of artificial grass turf.MY RADIGREEN®: a line of exclusive “All In One” combinations of straight and textured monofilaments, which is the hallmark of maximum creativity, innovation, production flexibility, customization and safety. MY RADIGREEN® is the ideal choice for the manufacture of long-lasting turf with excellent appearance that can make the most of public and private green spaces, opening up possibilities for unexpected uses and making outside areas more liveable – all the while allowing for maximum design creativity.
RADIGREEN®’S ENVIRONMENTAL FOOTPRINT MEASURED USING THE PEF METHODOLOGY.
RadiciGroup’s primary “sustainability objectives” include: to measure the environmental impact of its products in a rigorous manner and to provide customers and stakeholders with information based on scientific, verified and comparable data. In order to achieve this objective, the Group has adopted a variety of measurement tools, one of which is the Product Environmental Footprint (PEF) methodology for the calculation of the environmental footprint of its products. The PEF is also being introduced for Radigreen® polyethylene yarn. Shortly, RadiciGroup will be able to provide its stakeholders with all the data on the actual environmental impact of its yarns. This information will be of fundamental importance to its customers – particularly artificial grass manufacturers – who will be able to calculate the environmental footprint of their own products. 

PRODUCT ENVIRONMENTAL FOOTPRINT (PEF) – The Product Environmental Footprint (PEF) methodology was officially adopted in the European Union by the European Commission through Commission Recommendation 2013/179/EU. PEF is a set of common methods to measure, assess, validate (by a third-party) and communicate to stakeholders the life cycle environmental performance of products and services. The European Commission’s approach is based on the principle that a product’s footprint must be measured taking into account all the environmental aspects on which the product can have an impact during its entire life cycle – from the extraction of raw materials and use of natural resources for production to the end of the
product’s useful life and final waste management.

Hybrid system XtraGrass™ at the Ricoh Arena is a success

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The hybrid system from TenCate, called XtraGrass™ is proven to be a success at different stadiums in the Netherlands and the UK where the pitch is used for soccer and/or rugby. After its first season at The Ricoh Arena,  XtraGrass™ has proved a hit with both players and staff at Wasps RFC and is more than ready for another exhilarating season of sports.

We visited The Ricoh for the last match of the season and filmed Wasps V London Irish to see for ourselves how the pitch had held up with dual sports plus a number of events that have taken place on it. We were very pleased with how it looked! Due to the strength and increased durability of -XtraGrass™ it can withstand dual sports play as well as single sports providing a 100% natural grass feeling and a green looking pitch all year round!Curious to see the hybrid pitch after a rugby match? Click here to watch the video

The XtraGrass™ pitch received some fantastic comments from Wasps:

“The pitch is very durable and very flexible, it’s a good, hard playing surface” David Armstrong, Wasps Group CEO

“Its always a nice surface to play on, we can play good attacking rugby on it” Jake Cooper-Woolley, Wasps Prop

“It suits our style of play, it’s a beautiful pitch” Dan Baugh, Head of Strength & Conditioning

With – XtraGrass™ already installed at a number of high profile venues including The Ricoh Arena, The Kassam Stadium and Vitesse (Netherlands) and installations taking place currently at The Lensbury Hotel and PSV, the hybrid pitch is proving itself to be an optimum playing surface in the world of professional sports.

 

 

 

 

 

Click here

Field in a box™ ready for the Olympic Experience in Scheveningen

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With the start of the Olympics 2016 ahead of us, NOC*NSF organized an Olympic Experience for all Dutch people that would like to experience the Olympics close to home. The goal of the event is to bring people together at one location where they can experience the Olympics but also practice the different Olympic sports.

TenCate has installed a Field in a box™ at the beach with a hockey pitch in front of  the container so all visitors can come and play hockey on the pitch. No need to bring your own gear as hockey sticks and other attributes are all taken care of! Are you curious to see how the Field in a box™ container was made? How did we manage to get it on the beach? Please watch the full video here:  box? Please Click here to watch the making of Field in a box. If you would like to know more about the Field in a box concept  Please visit our website.

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Field in a box™ part of the Olympic Experience in Scheveningen

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During the 2016 Olympic Experience on the beach of Scheveningen, the Netherlands, Field in a box™ will be shown to the visiting public as the Box full of hopes & dreams©. A temporary mini hockey court of 20 x 40 meters is constructed for the Dutch Olympic Committee NOC*NSF, and the Royal Dutch Hockey Association KNHB. Anyone that wants to experience the 2016 Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro the best but has no ability to travel to Brazil this year, is welcome on the beach of Scheveningen, near The Hague. During daytime a variety of sports can be played under the guidance of more than 20 different Dutch sports associations, such as the KNHB. In the afternoon and evening, the 2016 Olympic Games in Brazil can be followed live on large screens, and can be enjoyed during media commentaries, other entertainment and the presence of former athletes and former Olympians.

The event takes place from 6 to 21 August and is intended for sports fans, families and other interested parties who want to experience the best of the 2016 Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro from the Netherlands. TenCate organizes four special days for selected stakeholders and TenCate relations interested in the Field in a box™ concept.

Learn more about Field in a box™ op: www.fieldinabox.com

Learn more about the 2016 Olympic Experience: http://denhaag.com/en/event/40096/olympic-experience

Cruyff court installed at the UN head office in New York

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Together with former Dutch soccer legends the UN ambassadors have played a tournament in June on the temporarily installed Cruyff Court. Even Dutch Minister Bert Koenders was there and participated during the soccer tournament.

“Sport, and especially football, brings people and communities together by emphasizing similarities and building bridges between different views, cultures and people. Football opens doors and makes things negotiable,” according to Minister Bert Koenders. The aim of the event was to raise awareness for the important role of sport in promoting peace, development, health and education. “On this day the unifying power of football symbolizes that the Netherlands is a partner for peace and development,” said Mr Koenders. The Cruyff Foundation and the KNVB WorldCoaches are joining forces to provide children from all over the world with opportunities to exercise. “That fits perfectly with the commitment of the UN to make sport part of programs for development and peace.”

TenCate Grass has been a longstanding partner of the Cruyff Foundation and produces the artificial grass fibers for the Cruyff Courts. There are now more than 200 courts worldwide constructed and this number will continue to rise in the coming months. Sport connects people and the Cruyff Foundation is aimed at inspiring young people so they can exercise together and develop themselves.

RADICIGROUP

Radigreen® yarn on exhibit at I Maestri del Paesaggio: event presentation in Milan

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A “Green Revolution” from 7 to 25 September in Bergamo: the exhibition I Maestri del Paesaggio was presented at a press conference held at Palazzo Lombardia in Milan on Thursday, 9 June. Again this year, the international event will take place in the splendid setting of Bergamo’s Città Alta [Upper Town] and will feature the most authoritative names in landscaping: landscape architects, garden designers, historians and photographers. A showcase of Italian excellence and creativity, in which RadiciGroup and its Radigreen® yarn will also be taking part.

The culture of the landscape will again be the leading player in Bergamo at the sixth edition of I Maestri del Paesaggio [Masters of the Landscape], an event hosting the most important international landscape artists, as in previous years, and organized by the Arketipos association and the Municipality di Bergamo. Nineteen days of nature and beauty that will transform Bergamo’s Upper Town into an open-air garden featuring “Wild Landscape” as its main theme.

The idea was developed by Stefan Tischer, a German landscape architect, whose projects in Germany, Italy, France and Canada propose new conceptual approaches, a contemporary interpretation of traditional landscape architecture and its transition towards urban studies, architecture and the arts. (In 2003 Tischer received the Prix Belmont, a prestigious award for landscape architecture and urban design, from the Forberg-Schneider Foundation).

The “Wild Landscape” theme and its various aspects will be the focus of workshops, seminars, performances, land-art trails and cultural events: all with the purpose of increasing awareness of the landscape and the delicate relationship between humans and nature.

I Maestri del Paesaggio has been growing year by year – according to Claudia Terzi, councillor for the Environment, Energy and Sustainable Development of the Region of Lombardy, who spoke during the presentation press conference ­– and not only in terms of visitors (there were over 250,000 registered attendees last year). The quality of the activities and the renown of the exhibitors and speakers, including international names in the field of landscaping, have been increasing, as well. The annual show has helped make Bergamo the point of reference and European hub of creativity for landscape design.

And RadiciGroup, one of the event sponsors, will also participate by contributing one of its products: RADIGREEN® polyolefin and polyamide synthetic turf yarn manufactured by Tessiture Pietro Radici SpA, a Group company celebrating 75 years in business this year.

Like every year, Piazza Vecchia in Bergamo’s Upper Town will be transformed into a wonderful outdoor “green living room”. But not only that. A few steps away, in Piazza Mascheroni, another surprising installation will welcome visitors, inviting them to stop and enjoy the colours, aromas, flavours and entertainment. And right there, in Piazza Mascheroni, RadiciGroup will be present with its yarn: the square will be covered with artificial grass made of the Group’s own MY RADIGREEN® yarn. The producer of the synthetic turf is SIT-IN SPORT, an Italian leader in artificial grass manufacturing.

MY RADIGREEN®: a line of exclusive “All In One” combinations of straight and textured monofilaments which is the hallmark of maximum creativity, innovation, production flexibility, customization and safety. MY RADIGREEN® is the ideal choice for the manufacture of long-lasting turf with excellent appearance that can make the most of public and private green spaces, opening up possibilities for unexpected uses and making outside areas more liveable – all the while allowing for maximum design creativity.

Europe’s first Field in a box™ opened in Madrid

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The first TenCate Field in a box™ system is installed and opened in Europe. The first European Field in a box™ was opened in Madrid. The field was commissioned by UEFA. FedEx helped make the installation possible. FedEx is fully committed to social investments in the markets in which it operates. The TenCate Field in a box™ system from TenCate Grass connects sports to social, educational and economic objectives.

TenCate Field in a box™ is an integrated, easy-to-install solution based on an artificial grass system and is comprised of an artificial turf mat of 20 by 40 metres, a foundation and boarding. Materials from TenCate Grass and TenCate Geosynthetics are used as a basis for the system. The system is packaged and delivered in a container, installed on location and equipped with all the extras. The field can provide incentives for employment opportunities and increase involvement from the local population. The system also addresses the global goals of the UN for sustainable development.

Cañada Real Galiana, Madrid
The field in Madrid was provided on behalf of the football organisation UEFA and is located in Cañada Real Galiana, an underprivileged neighbourhood in the Spanish capital. Funding for the installation of the field in Madrid was provided by FedEx. The courier and logistical services company is impressed by the innovative design of TenCate Field in a box™ and in particular by its sustainability. The FedEx Trade Networks division provides international transportation services and can ship the containers all over the world.

Delivering for good
With its global ‘delivering for good’ programme, FedEx is fully committed to social investments in the markets in which it operates. It is utilising its tools and networks to connect local communities to facilities that they would otherwise have no access to. In Madrid, FedEx is working together with Red Deporte Y Cooperación. This local, non-governmental organisation is involved in education, health, integration, peace-building and sports participation. As the main sponsor of the UEFA Europa League, FedEx is working together with the UEFA Foundation for Children and streetfootballworld. That is a global, non-profit network that uses football as a tool to bring about social change and to define communities that could profit most from a sports field. Red Deporte Y Cooperación is a part of the streetfootballworld network.

‘A smart approach’
TenCate Grass has already been approached for cooperation by a variety of institutions and companies both domestically and internationally, explains Hein Heerink. Heerink is product manager at TenCate Grass and co-designer of the system. ‘It is important for us to show that we can take a smart approach to installing artificial grass fields that also have a social objective. The first fields will serve as credentials for future projects.’