How to secure your football pitches

Secure your football pitches with security fencing

One way to stop unwanted use of your facilities is to secure the perimeter with gates and fencing. There are four noticeable benefits to this:

1. It secures the perimeter of the pitch
2. If high enough, it’ll prevent footballs going onto nearby roads
3. It helps with a visual demarcation of the facilities
4. It stops animals from going on the pitches

But a fence isn’t just a fence. Just like in other public areas, there are specific considerations to make before putting up a security fence surrounding a football field.

Considerations for football fencing

To avoid injuries and disruptions to the game, here’s what to consider when choosing your fencing for football pitches:

• Reduce sharp edges by using safety channels on the mesh
• Incorporate curved edges and flush sides for better ball rebound
• Add cranked fence tops to end trespassers climbing over
• Use divider netting to stop stray balls and get uninterrupted games
• Increase the height of the fencing panels to prevent footballs escaping

If you want more tips about fencing for football pitches, consult your chosen fencing installer.

Gate hardware to secure your football pitches

Now that you’ve decided on the type of fencing, we move onto another crucial aspect of making your football pitches more secure: the gate and our specialty, the lock.

Locks for securing football pitches

Football pitches are often a part of a larger leisure centre or sports facilities. Securing the facilities can take a long time every evening when closing. It’s therefore no wonder you want a solution that won’t take hours to secure at that time of the day.

The combination padlock is often used for this reason. But they often rust, get lost, or are too fiddly to use. Although straightforward to source, they aren’t the most convenient for the users when it comes down to it!

We don’t have anything against padlocks specifically. But we can’t help but want to show you the more convenient solutions out there.

So, could we interest you in a different keyless choice to help secure your football pitches?

Keyless lock for football pitches

You’ve hit the nail on the head with the keyless aspect of the combination padlock. For public spaces used by a larger number of people throughout the week, keyless is the way to go.

It’s cheaper and easier to distribute a code, more convenient to use, and you don’t have to worry about replacing any lost keys.

For sports facilities like football pitches, tennis clubs, and leisure centres, we always recommend a single-sided combination lock.

With this, you get:

• Keyless entry
• Entry secured with a digit pin
• Exit without needing the code
• Hold-back function allowing you to close the gate without it locking behind you

Especially the hold-back function (a feature of all our single-sided digital locks) is beneficial. This way, you or the facilities manager can unlock the gate at the beginning of the game, enable the function, and leave knowing the gate won’t lock again during the game.

The football game can then go uninterrupted by runs to reception to unlock the gate again because the new guy kicked the ball out of bounds. Again.

Go mechanical to secure your football pitches

You might be surprised to hear it’s not necessary to invest in a fully electric system to achieve the above.

In fact, we offer a fully mechanical combination lock which will do the job. The Superlock BDGS is our number one lock recommendation for sports facilities because it has all the above features and is made from anti-corrosive materials.

But, if you prefer the look of our Select Pro range, the DGLS will do exactly the same; it’ll just look a bit squarer.

There are other locks on the market, which will offer features such as easy code changing, and key overrides. These of course come at a premium price point, but it is worth researching and getting an idea of the features available. They might be overkill for your use, so keep your needs in mind.

The best lock to secure your football pitches

Ultimately it comes down to your personal preference as there are many gate locks out there that can secure your football pitches.

Here at Gatemaster Locks we aim to make gate hardware simpler. So, whether you choose the Superlock or the Select Pro, you will have a lock that is easy to install, simple to use, and has all the necessary features to make your football pitches more secure and convenient to use.