VIDEO: Tottenham Unveils Plans for World's First Dividing Retractable Pitch at New Stadium
Tottenham Hotspur have revealed plans to have the world's first dividing retractable pitch at the club's state-of-the-art new stadium, with technology supplied by mechanical firm SCX.
The innovation comes from the need to combine a Premier League football stadium with an arena that is also suitable for American Football games as the NFL looks to establish an even stronger base in the United Kingdom and Europe.
As already long established, the synthetic NFL field will sit below the real turf Premier League pitch, but the grass will split into three sections and retract into the bowels of the stadium when the playing surface underneath is required.
An information video from the club explains that the whole weight of the grass soccer pitch comes to around 10,000 tonnes, while the mechanism that moves it in and out of the arena on rails will be drive by over 200 electric motors in total.
The whole process to roll out the pitch for Spurs games will take only 25 minutes and Spurs say the technology being used has already been 'thoroughly' tested at the club's training ground.
The NFL has contributed £10m to the cost of the stadium and International Series games, which have been taking place in London at Wembley and later also Twickenham for 11 years, will be hosted there for at least 10 years after it opens in 2018 - a minimum of two games per season.
