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The cuts and dents on my knees still tell the story of a series of below-par performances on the plastic pitch at Deepdale, the home of . I was playing for my local amateur team at the time. It was the late 1980s, a few years before the articificial surface was eventually ripped up.

Bumpy, abrasive and with a bounce that could send a football into space, it was painful to play on and a poor spectacle to watch. The Preston players wore long tights for every home game, which tells you all you need to know about the quality of the surface.

Few tears were shed then when plastic pitches were formally outlawed in the Premier League and Football League in 1995, relegated, in the process, to little more than a footnote in the history of English professional football.

But all that could be about to change. An increasing number of Football League clubs are thinking of rolling back the years and going artificial again, albeit using a modern, high-tech surface that bears little resemblance to its predecessor.

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