Hockey’s Sydney Transformation

Today, Tuesday 29th September marks 20 years since the Women’s Hockey Final at the Sydney Olympic Games.

Dominant Hockeyroos and the Dutch comeback…from the pub

The hockey at the Sydney Games was exceptional, with stars like Annan, Aymar, de Nooijer and Sohail Abbas illuminating hockey’s biggest stage.

The Hockeyroos started and finished the tournament as Olympic champions remaining unbeaten throughout. Their back to back Gold medals in the Atlanta and Sydney Games showcased an emphatic dominance. Their players had grown up playing grass hockey, but the Hockeyroos had left this far behind. With dynamic skill and thrilling athleticism they owned the turf and along the way redefined what was possible. They took the women’s game to a new level.

The Dutch men’s team (as legend has it) were in the pub commiserating their premature exit from the Games, when they heard that Great Britain had caused a massive upset in the final pool game to relegate the Germans to third place in their pool. The Dutch left the pub and went to the semi-finals.

In the men’s final, South Korea narrowly missed causing another monumental upset after a 3-3 draw with the Netherlands took the game down to penalties. The Dutch won 5-4 on penalty strokes but what was clear was that South Korea had come a long way since they finished 10th at their home Games in 1988.

The game and the turf were changing

These stories of what happened on the pitch are well documented. What is less well chronicled is the story of transformation they signalled, and the impact that turf development was having on the transformation of the game.

Turf advancement is a hockey catalyst, as new skills, rules, equipment, fitness and tactics all evolve to meet the potential of each generation of hockey surface. By Sydney 2000, it had been 24 years since Montreal and ‘field hockey’ was now ‘turf hockey’ and the hockey / turf symbiotic relationship was entering a new phase.

A new surface for Sydney

Synthetic turf made its debut Olympic appearance in Montreal in 1976 in the form of AstroTurf, a nylon surface which has high water absorption qualities and softens to produce an excellent interaction between ball and turf.

It was the original synthetic surface and where hockey’s transformation began. Since then AstroTurf’s nylon surface has continued to develop and is still very popular today. During the 80s and 90’s it was the only surface available and grass-native players and coaches had come to know and trust it.
 
The harsh Australia climate was going to challenge the turf and 1990’s technology had much more limited UV protection than we know today. So for Sydney a new solution was required.

HOCKEY HAD SHIFTED FROM GRASS TO NYLON, WAS IS READY FOR ANOTHER SURFACE?

In response to the climate challenge, Poligras developed a turf with enhanced UV protection – and this turf was made from polyethylene. Hockey now had two turf surface options. This second generation, Australian-made turf was perfect for the home Games, but it was an unknown entity.

It still needed to win hockey hearts and minds, and Rob Kirkwood, head of sales for Poligras, led the team at Poligras charged with making this shift happen. And he didn’t just want to change the fibre; he also had another radical change in mind.

Grass is green. But this isn’t grass.

Rob and his team showed the FIH and Olympic decision-makers a green Poligras pitch but, for the first time ever, it had a non-green surround. Rob’s revolutionary second-colour concept had the non-playing area as ochre, which is a deep orange.

The company behind Poligras had been using different run-off colours in tennis for several years and it seemed logical to bring this to hockey’s biggest stage, but the colour-change was a massive change for hockey.

He explained that what feels like a small change 20 years on, was a seismic deal at the time:

“The decision makers wanted to stick with what they knew and trusted. This was the Olympics after all, hockey had accepted AstroTurf and the colour innovation made them very anxious - they thought that having a different colour on the sidelines would confuse players. They saw more risk than opportunity.

“Plus, some thought that an Australian-made surface would create an unfair home advantage. But others, like Alan Berry, President of Hockey Australia and Olympic Men’s Team Manager saw it as the future.”

Rob and his team ‘pitched the new pitch’ to the FIH by installing a sample of the proposed turf in the underground car park of the Poligras offices that overlooked the Olympic site. Although not a glamorous location, this car park is a key part in hockey’s transformation.

Technical improvements

Rob went on to explain that the Sydney turf had other technical advancements;

“What we were offering was a turf with fully fixed seams where the sidelines weren’t cut into the turf and no stretching and re-stretching of loose-laid systems was required. The ochre sidelines ran lengthwise so the whole thing would lock together and wouldn’t move. And at Sydney, the original shock pads would be reused, reducing costs for future resurfacing.

“Crucially, we were offering a permanent, dedicated hockey installation and that was a turning point.”And at Sydney, the original shock pads would be reused, reducing costs for future resurfacing.

“Crucially, we were offering a permanent, dedicated hockey installation and that was a turning point.”

A turf with deeper meaning

The turf was emotive too. Ochre, the colour of the pigments and minerals found in Australian soil, is one of the principal foundations of Australian indigenous art.

The first installation of the turf was in Little Bay, an area south of Sydney. By drawing on a rich heritage it captured imaginations and better connected the sport to the community. At the Games the hockey turf added to a powerful pride in Australia that was a key part of their success.

“This was our Games. And our home turf.”

On 24th September 1993, Sydney was announced as host of the 2000 Olympic Games. Up until then all wet hockey turfs in Australia had been imported, but as Rob puts it; “This was our Games.”

The Poligras 2000LSR turfs laid at Sydney were a visual cue for a hockey transformation. As Rob recounts; “They didn’t look real. They looked unreal”.

And this was precisely the point. Because this was the moment that elite hockey cut the final cord with grass hockey. Turf hockey was different and better; it was faster, more fluid, more dynamic and more accurate. And it now it looked different. Hockey’s future looked different.

As hockey turfs continued to rapidly evolve over the next ten years these qualities continued to be enhanced and skill levels where achieved that were unimaginable by previous generations.

A brighter more confident future

By Beijing the pitch was both red and yellow. By London, the actual pitch was blue with a pink surround capturing broadcast attention like never before and helping to promote the sport to a broader audience globally.

The increasing boldness of the colour palettes were commensurate with the distance hockey had travelled since its green grass roots. Hockey’s journey was complete, modern turf hockey was vibrant, confident and colourful.

Sydney presented the potential of what a turf could be, not just replicating the best grass field but surpassing it. It was a watershed moment for the sport and paved the way for a next generation, who were hockey’s first turf-natives; those players who did not have to transition from grass or early turfs but have only known hockey’s limitless potential played on fast, fluid surfaces.

Poligras Tokyo GT, made from 60% renewables is a bold and important marker for where hockey turfs are going. Hockey is a very progressive game and this innovation in sustainable raw materials for Tokyo 2020 will enable the game to remain fast and dazzling, and have a greater consideration of the world’s precious resources. In the most crucial sense then, the future of hockey surfacing is green. But the story of how it got here is much more colourful.