THE sight of Wales playing on an artificial surface in Andorra on Tuesday will have resonated with many an amateur footballer like myself.

Those 3G pitches are commonplace nowadays and most games of five-a-side you play in and around towns like Bolton will more than likely be on a similar surface.

An hour later and you are nursing the odd burn to the knee and emptying your moulded boots of hundreds of tiny black rubber pellets.

I can only imagine the carnage the Welsh kit man had when a whole team of players created a sea of rubber on the dressing room floor in Andorra – it would have been akin to a Dunlop factory.

But there is a serious side to the issue of 3G pitches and their validity.

The benefits, particularly at community level, are that they allow all-year round usage and not just when the weather is favourable and the grass is green.

For that reason, I think our schools and junior football clubs can benefit from them as long as the access is provided.

Whether they will ever be the norm at senior level is doubtful, though let’s face it most professional clubs now play on pitches that are a hybrid of natural grass and synthetic.

The complaints by the likes of Gareth Bale and co sums up the attitude amongst top players.

But they have never had it so good.

Just a slight bare patch in the goalmouth and they are up in arms these days despite plying their trade on surfaces more like bowling greens. It is a far cry from the mudbaths of the 1970s.

They are the lucky ones because the next generation are fortunate to just find a local football pitch in a good condition and that is if there are any left at all.

When I was younger you did not travel far before passing a plot of grass with goalposts on.

That sight is far less frequent now – it is no wonder we are struggling to develop top talent when, aside from the odd 3G pitch, the authorities prefer to build flats rather than keep pitches in parks for kids to go on.

The computer age may have fashioned less demand for playing ‘Wembley knockouts’ until dusk but youngsters still need places to play.

For all the good work done by the likes of Warren Barlow and organisations like the Bolton, Bury and District Football League, they need support and the tools to work with to maintain that and keep offering kids a place to hone their skills at local junior clubs.

When it comes to being pitch perfect, it is the kids who have a reason to complain not the internationals stars.