If you’re a sports lover, I bet you’re a football lover too. And you’re not alone. In fact, American football is the most popular sport in the country and in the world and around 40% of the citizen’s favorite game is football. Which has over 24 million participants and millions of viewers and players around the country. And the market is now larger than the whole of Europe, Middle East and Africa. But how and where can you practice football? In the park? In school? Nope, no need. Why go out, when you can make a professional football field in your backyard.
Whether you’re an NBA or MLB guy, you’re probably a super football fan. If you’ve a relatively large enough backyard where your kids play, why not make a professional football field in your backyard and play the most popular yet exercising game in the world. While you’re probably a fan of football which is why you’re here, you can turn your yard and make a professional football field in your backyard in less time. Assuming there are lots of questions in your mind going around, like how much size does the field need, what equipment I need, how much time will it take and more.
Step One: Measure Your Yard
You move out of your room to your car from your yard thinking how can I turn this into a useful and entertaining place. There are many things you could make to play of your yard, but what would be the best thing you could make which would be the favourite of you and your kids, and also keep fit and exercise? The answer is, ‘♪’tada♪” a football field.
The football field is the most effective and practical game which makes everyone healthy and build their skill. You can make a professional football field in your backyard and play along with your kids. So let’s do this.
While an American football field (also known as gridiron football) is 120 yards long and to 53 1/3 yards wide but you can create your own custom size football field regardless of your yard’s size. The playing area is 100 yards but with the end zones adding from goal lines to the end lines take another 10 yards that will sum up in a total of 120 yards.
There are three levels of American football, high school, college, and NFL. All field are the same size.
As by its name, the High School football is played by the High School teams and the college football is played by college, university players. National Football League (NFL) is the American National Football League which consists of 32 teams divided between the National Football Conference (NFC) and the American Football Conference (AFC). The difference between these three is the levels of the goal posts and hash marks.
The hash marks are two rows of lines close to the middle of the field that is equal to the sidelines. These small lines (2-feet long by 4-inches wide) are applied to mark the 1-yard sections between each of the 5-yard lines, which go from sideline to sideline.
The high school hash mark width is 53 feet long, 4 inches wide and college hash mark are 40 feet wide. NFL hash marks width is 18 feet long and 6 inches.
You can make a perfect football field in your backyard with the standard size or with any size of your backyard. The first and most effective step would be to measure your yard. It provides you the size and idea of how to manage everything.
If you already know what’s the size of the yard, and it fits in, you’re good to go. If you don’t know what’s the size of yard, you may measure.
However, if you don’t know how to measure your yard, you can easily do it from the following steps.
How to Measure or Calculate Your Backyard Size?
Just like most home owners, you may know the whole property size, but you may not know the size of the yard. Whether you’re buying a lawnmower, fertilizer, or measuring your yard for turning into football field, you would probably need to know your yard’s size.
There are some apps which can get the job done, Measure My Lawn, Google Earth, and Planimeter.
Enter your address with your state code into the app and use the measurement tools to find out the length and width of the yard.
How to Manually Mesure Your Yard Size?
If they didn’t do the job correctly, you may need to measure your yard’s size manually.
Go to the yard and start by walking the length of yard remembering one pace (step) is equal to 3 feet. When you’re done with it, note it down. Do it with the width of your yard and multiply length with width size. That’s how easy it is.
If your yard’s size is similar or close to it, you’re all set. If it’s more than that, you’re more than good to go. With that size, you can make the best football field in your backyard ever and enjoy your ultimate football field.
However, if your yard is less, not close to the specific size, you can still make a perfect football field in your backyard. These steps works perfectly.
Step Two: Prepare Your Yard
Great! You have the space to make the football field so you can make a perfect football field in your backyard, but that needs a little bit of work.
Just like golf which requires a quite clean field, it is also very similar to it. Since you play on the field, you may need to prepare and set it up.
- First, remove something stock or equipment on the field and free up space.
- Watch out for holes, burrows (which chipmunks and squirrels make), broken turf and up and down of the field and fix it up. If there’s hole, fill it up with soil and press it up. If there’s up and down, level it up with a shovel. If there are many up and downs, you may need to level it up entirely.
- Remove weeds and obstacles from the yard.
- Take a complete measure of the length and width.
The standard football fields have a small 1.2-degree rise to the center (middle) from the sidelines.
- Cut the grass of the field. The typical length of the grass on the field or a pitch is 25 to 30 millimetres. The grass is usually done cutting from side to side in every length that makes stripes viewable on the grass.
- If your yard doesn’t have grass, buy a beautiful high-quality turf or you can also grow grass with fertilizer. While you can save some money on the turf by growing it up yourself, but we assume you don’t have much time to grow the grass yourself. In which case, you can easily buy artificial turf grass lawn from Amazon and it will arrive very soon.
- Fit the turf on the football field and watering it a little bit freshens and cools which makes it ready for the game. The cool thing is, the artificial turf does require cutting the grass (mowing) and lasts for a long time. Some of them even include the yard lines and hash marks but they may not be sized perfectly for your yard’s football field size.
Step Three: Mark The Boundaries of Playing Field
Just like the international football field, mark the boundaries of the field which specify the boundaries which will seem and work as actual football field. We would do it in the easiest form.
Determine the length and width of the football field and where you want to make the football field.
Place the rope from one edge of the length of the field to another edge of the length of the field and paint it with white lawn paint which doesn’t require paint sprayer or marking chalk to mark the boundaries or external borderlines of the playing field with the rope. Use the measure to make the football field in your backyard accordingly.
At last, place the football pylons that are in a set of four, in four corners of the field.
Step Four: Mark The Yard Lines
A football field should be marked to make it prepared and ready to use. The accurate method is to divide the length of the field by 12.
First, we’ll mark the yard line. Mark every yard line every 5 yards past.
Similar to this, mark each of the twelve sections of length of the field. First, measure one side or yard line, which will make the other sidelines on the line making it very easy for the twelve other portions to measure and line up. Do the same on the other side of the sideline and continue the same for all.
Place the rope for the guide and join the sidelines sections with a straight line between the field. You will now have 12 yard lines when you’re completely done. Remember to use the rope all the way through to the end for straight lines.
If you’ve a smaller field, you may do the same, measure first and then mark the yard lines, but unfortunately, it may not perfectly fit like the standard one and if you’d like to make a larger football field, you’re more likely to divide it more than 12.
Step Five: Mark End Zones
The endzones are the two ending sides of the field which are larger than typical yard line that are 10 yards.
First, mark it with a white lawn paint or marking chalk (Probably with a rope as a guide) and place the pylons or cones on the sides. It’s very fun and easy to do so.
Step Five: Create Fields Numbers
Mark every yard line every 5 yards past. Every 10 yards past is signed with a field number. If your field is of a custom size, you may do it of uniform length and width on the ten-yard lines.
Step Six: Hash Marks
The Hash Marks are the marks in the centre of the football field. They are aligned with goal post and marked vertical and horizontal but the width will depend on the level of your playing field. The high school marks are 53 feet long and 4 inches wide. The college hash marks is 40 feet wide and the NFL hash marks is 18 feet long and 6 inches wide.
Write the field numbers 6 feet high and 4 feet wide. You can also write field numbers uniformly on the yard lines and mark the hash marks. Space four of the hash marks equally between each section.
Select one of the standard sizes and use them accordingly for the hash marks and goal posts.
Step Six: Create or Get Goal Posts
Goal posts are probably the most important part. As everyone knows it, there’s no need to define. It’s probably the target where teams will try to hit to and setting this target is a must for playing football and lets us place field goals within your game.
Creating goal post requires a complete football field but can be done in a smaller field as well. Goal Posts are made out of pipes and are 10 feet high, but the width depends on the level of your play. The high school level goal posts are 23 feet long by 4 inches wide. The college and NFL level goal posts are 18 feet long by 6 inches wide.
You can either get or create goal posts. The easier approach would be to buy a pair of perfect goal posts and simply place them.
If you’re going for permanent or even for temporary yard field, you may better purchase one that lasts long and fit it. For temporary even, you may still want to play again and again, but if you don’t want to spend much, you can get cheaper ones or Inflatable. The cool thing is it won’t hurt when a kid hits with it.
You can also create your own goal posts. Here’s how to.
- Grab a 25 feet PVC pipe and cut it into 4 feet long, 9 feet long, and 2 feet 9 inches long.
- Put PVC solvent into one edge of both 2-foot-9-inch pipes.
- Place those edges to the right and left sides of the tee making the crossbar of the goal post.
- Now put some cement to the 4-foot pipe and place it filling the leftover place of the tee.
- Use some cement to the one edge side of both 9-feet pipes and apply an elbow to fit on the pipes.
- Use cement for the free edges of the 2-feet 9-inch pipes and place them with the elbow which should be equal to the 4-foot pipes but on the opposite side of the crossbar.
In the last step, follow the goal post lines and on the goal post place, dig about 3 inches to the diameter and 1 foot down and place the 4 foot long pipe within the hole.
We recommend getting a high-quality goal posts. It may eat some money but will probably last long and is very useful, readymade, standard and doesn’t need any work to make. Simply set it up anywhere you’d like to. They are also very beautiful and interesting.
Last Step: Set Up Sidelines, Accessories, Kits
No football can be played without this. First, draw the sidelines.
Get two to three balls, two of your favorite suits for the teams, a bunch of football boots or shoes and some chairs for your tired players and viewers. And not to forget, get yellow and red cards, referee kit, flags and maybe a whistle which referee can use to pause when offside, foul or out. Getting two to three more of these items is probably a good idea when players changing, for additional back up players and also for your kids friend who wants to play. It’s good to get a few drinks or water bottles at least with a towel.
Provide those items for your players and place the chairs beside the sidelines so viewers and tired players can take a break on there. You may have at least half the numbers of players chairs. Often there will be crowd and more than the number of the people now. Like maybe your neighbour and its family come to see and when you’ve already the chairs, its super cool to have them. The chairs are useful every time you play football or use them in a party or in your house, anywhere!
Guidelines
There’s always room for improving your football look and experience. You can paint the end zones, the shirts and the ball, but it’s very important to make it very actual like on the TV. Means set rules and guidelines.
It helps everywhere and in every situation, especially when kids get angry and start fighting. As well as, it won’t be as fun as with rules and without rules, they won’t comply with the outs, fouls. While there’s no new rules, and you may know all the important rules. Teach them with the rules the type of game they want to play especially the marks.
Each team has 11 players and each team should wear different kind of shirts and suits. Also, get some flags, both team flags and out flags.
Place the goal posts, flags, pylones or cones at the appropriate place. Also, vote for a referee and give him the card and authority. Make sure to start properly, take offside, protect facemask.
Enjoy Playing!
Just like a party, call your friends but with preparation. Which means, get the required items and make them ready for an awesome football match.
With the things set in their place, you’re now completely ready to play and have fun with your friends. Remember to comply with the rules and regulations. It is one of the pillars that makes everything up.
You will see the improvement of you and your kids in a month or so. And see how skilful they are and maybe become the little Ronaldo or Messi, why can’t.