SIS Pitches Celebrates Record Year

The UK’s leading sports manufacturer, SIS Pitches, has announced 2024 as its best-performing year to date.

In addition to investing £500,000 in its Maryport factory for new tufting machines and solar panels, and growing its overall employee headcount by 20% since January, SIS Pitches has opened four new offices globally. These are located in Poland, India, Saudi Arabia and Georgia, in order to meet rising demand locally.

Earlier this year, one of SIS Pitches’ major pitch maintenance projects in the Middle East, the Kingdom Arena, in Riyadh, built in partnership with Sela, won two Guinness World Records for the largest covered football stadium and the highest capacity for an indoor covered stadium. The stadium itself was the first ever indoor grass pitch grown entirely without natural sunlight.

India Hybrid Cricket Wickets

In India, the SIS Pitches team installed the country’s first hybrid cricket pitch – a SIS Grass Hybrid product tried and tested across the English game – marking the beginning of a series of projects in the country. The manufacturer, working with Greater Ten locally, used its own ‘Universal’ machine to stitch hybrid cricket pitches in locations including the Himachal Pradesh Cricket Association (HPCA) Stadium in Dharamshala.

Other major projects won by SIS Pitches this year include names football fans around the world will recognise immediately, including Manchester City Football Club, Chicago Fire and Mandela National Stadium, in Uganda. The company also made significant forays into other sports internationally, securing projects with Baseball United to build the first professional baseball ballpark in the Middle East and South Asia, as well as Aramco Stadium in Saudi Arabia.

The manufacturer also toasted two news milestones, joining the Green Sports Alliance, cementing its commitment to promote sustainability, and ESTC, the trade association for the Synthetic Turf Industry in the EMEA region.

A patent has also been granted for the vacuum mechanism ‘Revolution’ machines, made by SIS Pitches to produce premium hybrid pitches for an array of sports. The machine is the first of its kind, allowing the manufacturer to stitch pitches at variable depths, offering more flexibility to clubs and sports facilities.

To top things off, one of SIS Pitches’ installations took centre stage at this year’s Paris Olympics. The Stade de France, which features a hybrid SIS Grass pitch, was the chosen venue for a handful of disciplines, including rugby sevens and athletics.

SIS Pitches owner and founder George Mullan said: “I’m incredibly grateful for our team’s hard work and commitment this year – none of this would have been possible without them.

SIS Pitches has also shared some of its plans for 2025. The manufacturer is readying to launch its innovative dry hockey solution widely in the second quarter. The surface, developed by the organisation’s experts, features a unique technology to replicate the properties of a water-based system without using a water ball, which can hinder the flow of play.

A US office is also in the works, and it was announced that current SIS Grass Managing Director, Ivo Lamot would become the company’s new Chief Executive, with owner and founder George Mullan stepping to Executive Chairman. Other major appointments also include Luke Edwards, set to become Chief Innovation Officer, while Rob Hope will continue on as Chief Operating Officer. SIS Pitches also underwent a rebrand earlier in the year and is set to launch its new website next year, focused on its philosophy of ‘Powering more play’.