Germans get over defeat on grass to Dutch

BERLIN, May 19: Grass from the Netherlands always had a special significance for those Germans who ventured across the border to Amsterdam and other Dutch towns in search of coffee shops where marijuana was a featured item on the menu.

''Dutch grass'' took on a new meaning in the country hosting the soccer World Cup, however, when a company from the Netherlands won the contract to lay the turf for seven of the 12 venues for the tournament that begins on June 9.

German national pride suffered a blow when it was announced more than a year ago that the honour of laying the grass in the stadiums had gone to their bitter, long-time soccer rivals.

In difficult economic times when many German companies are moving their factories to countries with lower wages, the news that even the job to supply grass for their World Cup was being outsourced abroad was a major defeat.

''It's no joke!'' wrote Germany's best-selling Bild am Sonntag newspaper. ''We're aghast! Our arch football enemy Holland is delivering the turf to Germany for the World Cup! A cheap Dutch supplier!'' Tensions subsided, however, as details emerged of the Dutch firm's expertise in grass cultivation and news came out that a German firm would lay the turf at the five other venues.

The bill for the 8,000 square metres of turf needed for each venue, delivered on 20 trucks, is about 120,000 euros (155,000 dollars). An extra 800 square metres per site is being stored in reserve.

''We're all proud to be part of such an extraordinary project,'' said Thomas Buechner, director of Buechner Fertigrasen in the western German town of Alsbach-Haehnlein.

THREE DAYS

His company has been laying the grass -- delivered in 18-metre long, 1.2-metre wide and 35-mm thick strips weighing 400 kg each -- in the five southern venues: Munich, Stuttgart, Nuremberg, Frankfurt and Kaiserslautern. They need about three days per venue and must be finished by next Wednesday to give ample time for the grass to take root.

Buechner has no qualms that a Dutch rival has been putting down the grass in the seven northern venues: Hamburg, Berlin, Cologne, Hanover, Leipzig, Dortmund and Gelsenkirchen.

The Dutch grass seed company Hendriks Graszoden is in fact geographically closer to most of those venues.

''FIFA wanted to make sure that everything goes off without a hitch,'' said Buechner, who spent more than a year preparing and tending the specially mixed grass variety. ''There are only about five companies in all of German-speaking Europe able to do it.'' Buechner and Dutch farmer John Hendriks have kept secret the exact locations of the grass grown for the World Cup to keep away souvenir hunters, pranksters or other trouble-makers.

Buechner, however, did give away a few details about his grass: the lawns were cut and the trimmed grass vacuumed away 72 times; the grass mixture is about 80 per cent smooth meadow grass (''Poa Pratensis'') and 20 percent rye grass (''Lolium Perenne''). It is designed to let balls roll fast and at the same time is robust enough to withstand a trampling.

LITTLE LIGHT

In Heythuysen, in the east of the Netherlands, Hendriks and his four brothers have been cultivating their World Cup grass for more than a year. Their company has become the market leader in northwestern Europe.

''We started 30 years ago and went from producing turf for family gardens, step by step, to making grass for stadiums, in particular stadiums with little light,'' Hendriks said.

Stadium architects have brought spectators closer to the pitch and put roofs over their heads in recent decades to improve the atmosphere and protect them from wind and rain.

Compact stadiums are, however, less favourable for the grass, which gets around one-fifth of the sunlight that pitches in more open stadiums with oval tracks do.

Hendriks believes there is a simple recipe for making good grass: ''Experience,'' said the Dutchman, who has enough turf for 450 soccer pitches on his farm.

He was stunned by the German tabloid newspaper headlines deriding his grass as a ''cheap import''.

''It was a big shock in Germany, with German papers saying 'We've lost already if we have to play on Dutch grass','' Hendriks said. He has said he decided not to respond to the tabloid attacks for fear of creating a diplomatic incident.

''Dutch firms sell to countries all around the world but when Holland sells to Germany for football, then the usual old gut feelings come back.''

REUTERS