The Forest Sports Zone in Nottingham was opened in 2015 following investment from the Football Foundation and the Premier League and is a busy, state-of-the-art facility managed by the Nottingham Forest Community Trust.
The facility includes a 3G pitch, a sand-based synthetic turf pitch, a MUGA (multi use games area) and indoor facilities for education and club activities.
Intelligent Play is used for both of the artificial grass fields with this field management technology installed in December 2018 for the 3G pitch and in March 2019 for the sand-based pitch.
Now, after almost a year, the sensors on the 3G field have monitored more than 120,000 playing hours and more than 5000 equivalent user hours.
Facility Manager, Jason, explains that the results they receive from the system are fantastic, allowing them to track huge amounts of data and easily access graphs and results that can be shared with colleagues and management.
Jason tells us that his favourite feature on their Intelligent Play dashboard is the pitch usage heatmap as it shows where activity has happened across the pitch and enables them to focus maintenance efforts on those areas.
Jason explains: “As we are such a busy facility, we often only have small windows of time to compete pitch maintenance so using the heatmap to know exactly where to spend time more effectively is crucial. Being able to carry out maintenance in this way will also ultimately enhance the lifespan of the surface.”
In addition, the Forest Sports Zone was built to provide access to high quality sports facilities for all members of the local community and Jason tells us that: “being able to track participation accurately is key to this.”
For more information about how Intelligent Play works, click here.
