| Abstract |
After its introduction in Iceland more than a century ago, football (soccer) soon became the country’s most popular sport. Due to the harsh oceanic climate with long, cold and stormy winters, training and competitions were largely limited to the relatively cool and short summers. Effectively, this meant that football was a summer sport in Iceland, with the main competitions held from late May into early September. The short football season was reflected in poor results achieved by both the national teams and club teams in international competitions. With the building of the first football fields with artificial turf in the 1980s, gradually this started to improve. In the 1990s the Football Association of Iceland (KSÃ) presented its future vision in changing football in Iceland to a sport practiced in good conditions through the whole year. This included building of houses covering both full-size football fields (105 m × 68 m) and half-size (approx. 70 m × 50 m), and numerous full-size football fields with artificial (football) turf. At the start of the 2000s, another major project was initiated in building of mini-pitches (33 m × 18 m) with artificial turf and strong perimeter rebound fence, at school yards and other locations where children had easy access - to maximize their use. The projects were successfully launched in cooperation with the larger municipalities in Iceland, which carried the main financial costs, with the first full-size football hall opened in February 2000. In the period 2002-2007, 6 additional full-size football halls were opened, adding about 20 full-size outdoor pitches. Furthermore, in the period 2004-2008, 111 mini-pitches were built. One of the important factors considered and recommended in the design and building of these structures was heating - to make the houses as comfortable as possible during winter time. Similarly, underground heating of the outdoor fields was recommended to maximize their usage – even through periods of difficult winter conditions. Undersoil heating was even considered in some fields with natural turf to lengthen their possible usage in spring and autumn. Here, the availability of cheap geothermal water for heating was believed crucial. In Iceland, over 90% of all houses are heated with geothermal water. Most of it is produced in the many low-temperature geothermal fields distributed over more or less the whole country, and used directly, while the rest is produced by heating cold water with geothermal steam in power plants at high-temperature fields. And importantly, the price of geothermal water for heating in Iceland is low – much lower than can be offered for heating by any other energy source – even on international scale. During the last decade a major improvement in Icelandic football has been seen through the results of Icelandic national teams, both for men and women, with participation in the Euro-finals for both men and women, and the WC-finals for men. In this paper, the main factors in the design of these football constructions are presented with emphasis on the heating systems used, as well as an update on the status of football facilities today. Some consideration is also given to the economics of the projects. Finally – has geothermal heating played a significant role in Iceland’s recent football success? – that is a key question to try to answer. |