Lines are not an afterthought

The perfect turf. That's what greenkeepers - the name says it all - are fundamentally about. However, it is not the only focus. The roughly 600 running meters of lines on the soccer field also deserve the necessary attention. Just ask soccer club KFC Sint-Lenaarts, which had to cancel a match in early March because of crooked lines. "For top sport, all the details have to be top notch," Marc Tratsaert emphasizes. His company Footline therefore offers a complete range of services for soccer clubs and other sports associations and literally straightened out the situation in Sint-Lenaarts.

Footline was born in 2012 as a passion project of Marc Tratsaert. What started with a single high-quality line paint for soccer pitches has now grown into a one-stop shop for the complete equipment of numerous sports clubs at professional and amateur level. Balls and other training materials as well as soccer goals, goal nets, sprinkling equipment and even complete dugouts with benches or seats are part of the range. But ask Marc Tratsaert about his core business, and the answer is clear: lines.

Always the right paint

The type of field and its condition, the desired colors and weather conditions ...: all have an influence on which paint to apply. As the exclusive main distributor of Pitchmark's quality sports field lining paints, products and lining equipment, Footline has a solution for every question. 

"For natural grass, we offer both concentrate paints and ready-to-use grades," Tratsaert said. "Which type is appropriate depends mainly on the quality of the turf. For example, the ready-to-use products are atomized. Consequently, for good coverage, you also need a nice, dense turf. With concentrate paints, this is less decisive. They are sprayed and actually always provide good coverage."

Although the lines in artificial turf fields are often already integrally provided, Footline also has specific paints for such applications. "Eventually, even here the lines become dirty and less visible over time. That is why we also offer solutions to refresh these lines - both in white and in the various basic colors."

Knowledge Sharing

The greater the range of paints, the more important, of course, is the necessary product knowledge. "The top clubs may employ specialized personnel for this, but in almost all other cases it is the technical department of the municipality or a team of volunteers that is responsible for the lines. That's why service is really the cornerstone of our company." With years of experience, the now five-member Footline team therefore invariably supports greenkeepers, staff and volunteers with both materials and professional advice. In addition to product selection, a great deal of attention is also paid to execution and maintenance of the machines involved.

Linemaster

A highly appreciated pillar of the Footline service is its rapid intervention. "In any case, we ensure a fast delivery of products, but also when something goes wrong somewhere we are quickly on site. For example, after the phone call from KFC Sint-Lenaarts that evening in early March, we were already on site the very next working day to repaint the old lines with green and apply the new ones."

The latter happened with the Linemaster: a state-of-the-art lining device that, thanks to built-in GPS and satellite technology, ensures a result that is perfect down to the millimeter. "The Linemaster is about the price of a small car, so it makes sense that not every club can get this technology in-house. That's why we offer it as a service. This is not only done during interventions, but is also a much requested service at the beginning of the season, for example - when no lines are visible yet. After all, that way greenkeepers and volunteers can very easily rely on that initial and guaranteed correct lineation for the rest of the season."