Hockey fields and football turf from Polytan at the Potsdamer Sport-Union 04
Synthetic turf systems for sustainable, professional sport
The clubhouse of the Potsdamer Sport-Union 04 e.V is located almost within view of the Templiner See. Since 1904, the club on Templiner Strasse has offered its members numerous opportunities to participate in sports. Today, these primarily consist of hockey, football, volleyball and table tennis. What’s more, the club has always attached great importance to its youth work. The largest division of the PSU nowadays is hockey, which was founded after the First World War. It currently consists of four adult teams – the first women’s hockey team plays in the second Bundesliga; the men’s, in the club league of Berlin.
The youth division of the club has a total of 14 teams; while “Fritzi’s hockey school” is open to children. In addition, the PSU offers special hockey training for people with and without mental disabilities, which is funded by the social organisation “Aktion Mensch”. Hockey camps during the holidays, girls’ and boys’ days, and hockey nights for children are all part of the club’s outstanding and exemplary youth work in Potsdam.
Alongside beach volleyball courts and running tracks for jumping disciplines, the grounds of the PSU contain two field hockey pitches and a football pitch. All three pitches were renewed in 2020 and equipped with products from Polytan. Our local partners were the firms Ahner Landschaftsarchitektur and Sportplatzbau Schmitt. The hockey pitches were resurfaced with our unfilled turf, Poligras Tokyo GT, which was specially designed for the 2020 Olympic Games. Its filaments are made from over 60 percent renewable raw materials, through which we instigated a “sustainable” revolution in hockey. This is also reflected in the product name: GT stands for Green Technology and indicates the surface’s exceptional sustainability and eco-friendliness.
However, Polytan’s Poligras Tokyo GT hockey turf not only stands out for its ecological benefits, but for its excellent playing characteristics too. Permanently stable and protected against premature wear, the surface features patented ENTANGLEMENT technology, which prevents the narrow edges of pitches from splitting, as they are prone to, and makes the synthetic turf system even more robust and durable. In Potsdam, the hockey pitches are built so that they can be used as one large pitch, or two smaller ones.
And since we are actively working to achieve greater sustainability here at Polytan, we have already developed a new and improved successor to its Poligras Tokyo GT, which is used in all the major hockey nations: Poligras Paris GT zero. It is not only the world’s first climate-neutral synthetic hockey turf, but is also currently the only turf that is approved for the category of water-based hockey turf and the new FIH innovation category “Non-Irrigated”. We are proud of our new solution for highly sustainable and professional hockey.
The PSU’s football field was resurfaced with our LigaTurf Cross GT zero, the first climate-neutral synthetic turf available for professional and amateur sports. Its filaments are made from up to 70% bio-based fibre raw material (PE), while the infill consists purely of sand. Additionally, the conventional latex wear coat has been replaced with Polytan’s innovative PU coating, PolyCoat.
With its two field hockey pitches and its football pitch, the Potsdamer Sport-Union 04 has demonstrated that synthetic turf systems are perfectly suited for ecological, sustainable and professional sport.
