BERMUDA Football Association president Larry Mussenden hopes the long-awaited synthetic pitch at Gym Field can be completed by the end of this year.The project, originally set to be completed this spring, has been put on hold as plans were redrawn to make the pitch wider.

But he said the delay was worth it while he hopes other clubs copy the example and ditch grass pitches for smoother, more durable synthetic surfaces.

The new pitch at Frog Lane will now be 70 yards by 110 yards — a significant improvement on the narrow field planned previously.

He told The Mid-Ocean News: “In our talks with FIFA all of us wanted a slightly bigger field so we went to Government who were happy to give us more land going towards the National Stadium — that little slope — to make it wider.”

It needed a redrawn lease which had to go back to Parliament as another 0.68 acres were added to then existing 1.46 acres next to Police Headquarters. New plans had to be hammered out with contractors.

“We hope certainly by the end of this year we will be playing football up there on a wider field.”

The state-of-the-art pitch will be used for all national team training, women’s teams and other clubs while CedarBridge students will get the use of it during the day.

“We think it is going to be a fantastic addition to sports fields in Bermuda. Hopefully when people see that surface they will consider having it at their own clubs in Bermuda. It is definitely the way to go.

“I was in Toronto recently and they opened the new Canada stadium and they had the same surface there as we are going to get and it’s magnificent. I was very pleased with it.”

“Everybody in Bermuda is going to love it. We just need that little bit of patience. We are getting there slowly.

“It has been delayed for a good reason — it’s better to get a bigger field.”

Last year Mussenden put out a public call urging for clubs to get artificial surfaces but it’s not thought any club has expressed an interest.

“It is a massive undertaking but sometimes people have to see something working and I think Gym Field will be the model field and when the clubs see it and players play on it and we see how much use we can get out of it then it might be an inspiration to other clubs to come on board and try and make it happen.

“By hook or by crook we will get that type of surface on more fields.”

Some in the game still associate artificial pitches with bouncy Astroturf which got a bad name in other countries where it was notorious for high bounces and carpet burns for those rash enough to launch slide tackles.

But that was a thing of the past said Mussenden.

“The Toronto stadium is synthetic and they will be having the Under-20 World Cup there this summer. We have to move with the times.” The stadium, which holds about 20,000 spectators is also now home to the Toronto FC of Major League Soccer.

The BFA is still waiting to find out the total costs. It is set to get three lots of FIFA funding of $400,000 a time for the three-part scheme to put in the pitch, lights and fencing in that order.

The venue, popular as a training pitch for all sorts of sport, has been used less since Hurricane Fabian took down lights and made night training impossible during the winter.