The Soccer Field Handbook PDF

When the U.S. Soccer Foundation approached Soccer America about develop-ing a how-to handbook on building soccer fields, it seemed like a pretty simple no-tion.

Like the process of developing soccer fields, however, creating this handbook was a far larger task than we had ever imagined.

Every soccer field project is different.

Just some of the differences are based on:

what part of the country it’s located in, whether the area is city, suburbs or rural; what resources are available, whether it’s one field or a complex of many fields; what land may be available or affordable; whether a soccer organization is building the field(s) itself or with community partners; how affluent (or not) members are; how supportive the community is and what weather and soil are like.

There are dozens of factors that are specific to the community, the site, the organization and the project.

Yet with all the differences — and after hundreds of pages of interview notes and research material — patterns emerged.

Everybody must recruit and motivate volun-teers, find a parcel of land, work with the political process of their community, create a plan, raise money, choose professional helpers such as contractors and landscape architects, decide on natural or synthetic turf, construct the field(s) and amenities, and ultimately manage and maintain playable fields, plus keep themselves engaged and motivated over the many months and even years a project could take.

And most of these people have never tackled a project of this type before.

The goal of this handbook is to offer simple and common-sense information to help individuals and organizations successfully build one or more soccer fields.

What it will teach is the right questions to ask, the skills and resources to find the answers, and the confidence to take the spark of the idea “we need more soccer fields” all the way to the reality of children and adults playing on beautiful green

fields.

It will not teach you to be a professional architect, engineer, contractor or groundskeeper, but it will help you work with those professionals in a knowledge-able, confident way.

We salute the wonderful people who make soccer fields happen.

Our respect is boundless for their commitment, tenacity and energy.

For those of us who play on the field or cheer on the sidelines, soccer fields just seem to happen ... and usually not often or fast enough for our liking.

But to understand what it takes to ultimate-ly have more soccer fields is to see the best of America’s soccer community.

It is our honor and our mission to serve it.

We wish to thank the many, many individuals, organizations and companies who offered their time, their experience and their stories for this handbook.

It would not have been possible without them.

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