<p>Our school has redesigned the (outdoor) soccer field, and is installing artificial turf. As I recall, wearing regular soccer cleats can cause knee injuries. Any suggestions for what kind of shoes we should look for?</p>
<p>Also, I seem to remember hearing that scrapes from artificial turf can be nasty and hard to heal. Any comments? We are in a semi-tropical environment, so there is a lot of mold and mildew, which will be in the turf, unless they are planning to wash it regularly.</p>
<p>Karen, what you’re looking for = turf cleats. Most larger sporting goods stores sell them now. If you can’t find them locally, numerous places online have them. Bear in mind that they collect just as much stuff as traditional soccer/lax/f.h. cleats, but instead of mud and grass clumps it will be what are endearingly known as “turf turds.”</p>
<p>As for the injuries, you do sometimes get scrapes that are more like rug burn. Not sure what sport your kid plays, but you can’t go wrong with tossing a few extras of those alcohol based hand-sanitizers (the kind that come in mini spray tubes) in her or his soccer/lax bag. The spray covers the larger surface area of a big scrape, say from a post-slide-tackle slide, pretty well. Theoretically the trainers and coaches should have all this stuff but - it doesn’t hurt to bring your own.</p>
<p>Most of my friends wear flats on turf.</p>
<p>Soccer.com has a subcategory of turf boots. Go to footwear and you’ll see the subcategory.</p>
<p>The type of shoe depends on the type of artificial surface. Our area uses a lot of “field turf” for outdoor artificial surfaces that are multiple use (soccer, football, lacrosse…) and the players can wear the same shoes they wear on real grass. These are the molded cleat, they are not allowed to use the removable metal kind no matter what the surface. But there are lots of “boots” and soccer.com is a great source; we’ve used it many times. I just know that turf shoes tend to NOT get used if cleats are accepted on the surface.</p>
<p>I can’t speak to the knee injury issue. As for turf burns, my players wear them with honor; youngest is master of the slide tackle. Just clean thoroughly after every exposure and slap a layer of anti bacterial ointment on it for a bit. Standard practice at this house (just thinking about all the nasty germs percolating on that artificial surface makes this mother a little ill).</p>
<p>are you sure its’ not “field grass?” Artifical yes, but not in the same way as older surfaces that were installed 10-20 years ago.
(old coach speak)
Basically, you have a soccer bag. It should have your soccer stuff in it. There is no point leaving it home. A soccer player should carry three sets of boots. Nubbies (indoor/hard surface/old astroturf) grass (field turf/natural grass) Mudders (long cleat/muddy fields). Walk the field/ then put your shoes on.</p>
<p>Knee injuries are more common in girls in soccer because many haven’t developed the strength around their knee area to support the twists and turns on the field. </p>
<p>However, the wrong shoes on certain fields can increase the probability of injury. Having spent about 30 years in the game field turf is a blessing over grass/dirt fields. Most injuries occur on grass/dirt because the fields are overused and allowed to form ruts, holes and uneven playing surfaces. Dirt fields become mud fields and hide all sorts of goodies like the empty beer bottle I slide tackled into as a youth player slicing my knee wide open. Another reason to walk the field before play…</p>
<p>2 things you need to remember. Just because your school is putting in turf doesn’t mean he is only going to be playing on turf. Many of the other schools may be regular hard or soft ground/grass.</p>
<p>My son plays a lot of soccer, but he’s also into football. He uses soccer cleats for playing football also. He’s a kicker, which it helps, but also a wide receiver and defensive back. Some games are played on turf, some on soft grass, some on hard grass.</p>
<p>My son has 2 different pairs of shoes he keeps depending on the ground he is playing on. He’s been recruited to play in college and they too will give him 3-4 different pairs of shoes. Grass, Turf, and practice. My son, and the college team, swears by Nike. The “Total 90” is the preferred model. If you get just the TURF model, it’s about $120. If you get one that can also be good for grass, it’s about $185-$200. Or you could get both types in which case it would cost more.</p>
<p>Yes, we use two pairs of soccer “shoes” at our house. Cleats for outdoor, “indoor” soccer shoes for indoor soccer and any turf fields. And yes, the dreaded turf turds - they end up all over my kitchen floor after his indoor games!!!</p>
<p>*Basically, you have a soccer bag. It should have your soccer stuff in it. There is no point leaving it home. *</p>
<p>but if you have a D with a favorite sports bag- won’t let mom buy a duplicate- but is on more than one sports team at a time- you have to switch out all the time.
Its about as smart as always changing your purse ;)</p>
<p>we have indoor soccer- but the outdoor fields on artifical turf use same boots as on sod or dirt.
indoor is different
she also wears same shoes for rugby as soccer- you just can’t wear baseball cleats with the nasty spike.</p>
<p>( oh I am going to miss going to her games)
:(</p>
<p>Also, depending what you’re looking for - Dick’s carries the turf shoes…</p>
<p>Get to practice to drop off man-child, who drove, as he has his permit and always wants to drive. Of course he has to wear street shoes to drive. He pops out of the car and immediately runs back to inform me he “forgot” his cleats. </p>
<p>Yes, the soccer bag SHOULD have the soccer gear in it. But for reasons I can’t quite understand, it never does. Standard question before leaving for an away game - do you have both sets of shoes/boots (meaning regular cleats and the turf cleats he rarely uses)? No. Next question from me will be along the lines of what kind of surface are you playing on? Response will always be “I don’t know”. Mother’s agitated response will always be something like “Take both pairs of ******* SHOES!!!”</p>
<p>"but if you have a D with a favorite sports bag- won’t let mom buy a duplicate- but is on more than one sports team at a time- you have to switch out all the time.
Its about as smart as always changing your purse "</p>
<p>But em, if your d used her rugby bag, she not only could put all her gear in there, she could put a body inthere too… 
</p>
<p>My son took mine. It’s over 35 years old and still survives everything short of a nuke. </p>
<p>As I said it’s old coach speak… I would go through a kit bag with my players and they would carry everything. Game prep began at home. This is where coaches have more influence than parents.</p>
<p>As a soccer ref, you always carried with you (yellow, red, black, blue, short, long sleve) around 8-12 jerseys, 3 or 4 pairs of socks, back up whisltes,cards, extra shorts (2 pair), towels, t-shirt, compression, thermal gear…etc… when I gave up reffing, I sent two garbage bags of gear and shoes to Nigeria to find a new life. Now someone in Nigeria is complaining about the calls someone in my old jersey is making…</p>
<p>Our school was wanting to go the Field Turf when they built the new high school. It has since been cut out of the budget due to costs. They were originally told that installing the turf would be cheaper due to the water usage being so much lower than that of natural grass. Turns out that isn’t quite the case. They’d have to use water to cool the surface as well as clean it I guess.</p>
<p>The University of Illinois just put Field Turf on Illinois Field, their baseball field. The entire thing (except maybe the mound) is the turf surface. I wonder what they’ll use for shoes on there?</p>
<p>Sorry to sidetrack a little bit… :)</p>
<p>Normal size cleats work best on field turf. It plays like the best grass field you’ve ever stepped on. If installed well no need to crown the field so a true level playing field can be had.</p>
<p>Reffed the first game on a new HS field in my state. A player struck a ball up the line from her pentaly area depth and it rolled (slowly) about 80 yards down the line (ball has to be all the way out in soccer) as the players thought it was going out and weren’t playing … It finally was kicked out inside the other pentaly area. Not many fields with that true of a surface where a ball could roll that far. </p>
<p>Field turf also tends to be easier on the knees. Running two or three games on fieldturf your knees and back feel much better than the same on grass or old artie turf. </p>
<p>It’s too bad budgets didn’t allow for it at your school because the biggest advantage it offers is just about 24/7 use without noticable wear. Up here in mayberry, the grass fields are worn out from demand and never really get to rest and dirt is just gawd awful to put anybody on.</p>
<p>Opie, one major issue they had after cost was the fact that during two-a-days they wouldn’t be able to be on it! Some schools in our area have had issues with the turf getting too hot. Here at my college we’ve got the Field Turf on the football stadium and the soccer team plays there too. Also the baseball and softball teams are practicing there this time of year. But I know I saw one day this summer the temperature was 122 on the turf!</p>
<p>Somebody told me that they had a soccer player’s shoe melt to her foot one year! It would have been great for soccer, football, marching band, PE, baseball and softball could have practiced on it some, etc. Oh well… instead they’ll have a soccer game field, football game field, soccer practice field, and football practice field.</p>
<p>Well having traveled to St louis this past August, I could believe it. </p>
<p>I think you might be running into rationalization a bit. It’s a pretty sucessful product once installed. But it’s going to depend on agendas. Having played on just about everything, it’s the best surface outside of those little plastic pebbles that fill your shoes. I figured if I reffed long enough, I could bring home enough “pebbles” to underlie my own turf.</p>
<p>Opie, we put the rubber chips in our practice field for football my freshman year maybe. Freshman or sophomore year… anyway was supposed to help keep grass by allowing the water to be held better or something. All it did was make the field THAT much hotter and filled our shoes:) I know what you’re saying with the pebbles. The locker room was always a mess.</p>
<p>Was funny I can recall getting snow one time and walking past the practice field. You could see where they had laid the rubber down; the snow wasn’t sticking there.</p>
<p>If only we were in Texas or some of these other states where sports dominate we’d have the turf;) It was hard enough getting the money for a new school!</p>
<p>In the waay old days I used to have to play on a field of shredded tires (rubber bark chips size) spray painted red laid over rock hard dirt. Boy fun. It was almost like the stuff the ole tartan gym floors were made of, just not melted… </p>
<p>The worst we have locally is a club owned complex (about 20 fields) that flooding over the years has swept all the good topsoil away. So you have wavy hardpan covered by grass. Then they fill ruts with sand. So you be running on rock hard ground, hit a patch of ankle deep sand for 3 yards and then back to hardpan… they try hard to improve it, but private club and floods about 3-4 feet deep every other year when the river rises. </p>
<p>Up here in WA, most grass fields are crap because demand is so high. Population grows but recreation fields doesn’t. We’re about 30 years behind our demand and field turf and lights help… this is where I envy the Canadians most. </p>
<p>They believe in recreation as a means to improve general health of the population, We don’t. Haven’t for decades. That is why I doubt government run HC because the things they “can” provide to improve the general health of a population they don’t do. It takes around 15-20 years to build a ball field for kids if the government is involved. I know I spent 10 years attempting 16 fields five years after I left, they built 3 and bagged the other 13 and baseball fields and walking trials. There just is enough people in government to slowly kill these kind of projects.</p>
<p>opie - Yes! It’s always great to watch DD play on those fields that come with their own mini-irrigation ditches!</p>
<p>Back to shoes, the most trustworthy soccer shop I know of says that the best cleats for field turf are blade style - long rectangular molded cleats - which can be used on grass too. The round peg-style cleats are less desired for field turf. Something to do with likelihood of injury, but everyone has a different view on these things. D has always worn the blades, but typically is not playing on dirt or old style astroturf. So they’re a good multi-purpose boot.</p>