Crouch, touch ... engage | Clubs set for field day as King’s Park gets a makeover

The usual excited shrieks of youngsters attending summer sports programmes in the vicinity of Wylie Path in Ho Man Tin have been temporarily replaced by the clatter of heavy machinery as the Hong Kong Rugby Football Union replaces the three artificial pitches at its King’s Park Sports Ground.

Dubbed the “home of rugby” since its 2003 rebirth under HKRFU management, the venue is also home to the Yau Yee Football League and the Hong Kong Slo-Pitch Softball Association, as well as Kowloon and DeA Tigers rugby clubs. As such, it provides a valuable sporting resource for the whole community.

While replacing the 3G artificial turf pitches is a pricey undertaking, for the union it represents another investment of profits from the Cathay Pacific/HSBC Hong Kong Sevens, with the aim of growing sport throughout Hong Kong.

This mission has seen more than HK$100 million spent on pitches from the north of Tin Shui Wai to the south of Stanley, and from the west of Tung Chung to the east of ... well, finding a suitable site for a pitch in the Sai Kung area is proving a bit of a challenge, but the search continues!

Artificial pitches are not everyone’s half-time cup of tea, so to speak, but in a city struggling for space as much as Hong Kong, if we wish to provide our youngsters with the opportunity to participate in sport then we must choose options that allow us to maximise utilisation of facilities.

Growing grass in Hong Kong is notoriously challenging; the varied climate means a field needs a mixture of both summer and winter seasonal grasses, and unfortunately even when it’s hot we don’t have the cloudless sunshine that encourages vegetation growth.

So although any athlete would choose a top-class natural turf pitch over an artificial one, that is not an option we have in Hong Kong and a state-of-the-art 3G surface will always win out over the alternative – rock-hard grounds with less thatch than Bobby Charlton’s head.