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How to Build Your Own 5-a-Side Football Pitch
Here is everything you need to know about setting up your own 5-a-side pitch in your back garden including goals and lighting.
Let’s be honest, finding 10 other people to join you on a football team can sometimes be a difficult job – and finding another 11-man team to play against may prove to be even more difficult. Most football fans dream of having a 5-a-side pitch in their garden (although, the wife has probably said no) for tournaments with friends and family. It ensures that dogs don’t run into the pitch at the park on their daily walks, and also ensures that there is always a pitch available.
Here is everything you need to know about setting up your own 5-a-side pitch in your back garden.
The Amount of Space
Most families aren’t blessed with a spacious garden, big enough for hosting a football pitch. While the pitch won’t be as big as a regular stadium pitch, it certainly will take up a heap of room – probably around the same size as a tennis court. Check your dimensions before taking this any further.
Turf or Artificial Grass
Let’s be honest, we don’t get the best weather here in the UK. Perhaps opt for an all-weather artificial pitch rather than grass so that you can play in any weather, without ruining the pitch.
The pitch is easy to clean too – simply grab a hosepipe and shower it post-match. The only downfall of this is the price, an artificial pitch can be quite expensive to lay. If you’re on a tight budget, then go with grass.
You have two options with grass – the first, being the cheapest, is to prepare the area making sure the soil is flat and free of stones, then raked over before sowing grass seed. The second method, which is a lot faster and great if you need to complete this pitch by a certain time, if to prepare the area and lay turf. While it can take a while to bed in, it can be used more quickly.
Goals
What sort of football game would it be without two goals? If you’re buying your goals from a company, then beware as these can cost a few thousand pounds – a little crazy considering it’s just a net with a couple of poles. You’ll be able to do this more cheaply if you elect to use plastic or homemade goals, but they will need to be big. Opt to make 7-a-side sized goals, as these will be a little bigger.
Kickboards and Pitch marking
Kickboards make life a lot easier as they will prevent the ball from running away each time someone kicks it a little bit too hard. Your pitch will obviously need markings, otherwise it would be difficult to enforce the offside rule. You can rent/buy line marking machines that will make the job a lot easier than painting them on yourself.
Flood Lighting
Without lights, you are restricted to playing within the daytime, which may not be suited to everyone’s convenience. Come winter, the days get shorter, which really restricts how much you’ll be able to play. The solution of this is flood lighting, although this doesn’t come cheap and you need planning permission for this.
Expect to pay around £30,000 or more for an all-weather 5-a-side pitch with floodlights. You need to have a think about whether this is worth it, and whether you’re really going to get your money’s worth for it. Sure, if you think you will, then what are you waiting for!
