Abstract:
Football is a sport associated with high injury occurrence. The sport is characterized
by short sprints, rapid acceleration or deceleration, turning, jumping, kicking, and
tackling which makes the players vulnerable to injury. The study was conducted to
unravel the perceived association between football playing surfaces and sports injuries
among division-two football clubs in the Volta Region. Using descriptive survey
design, the study was conducted on 210 participants from division-two clubs with an
average age range between 15 and 20. Convenience sampling technique was used to
select the sample for the study. Participants completed questionnaire that entails types
of injuries likely to associate with different football playing surfaces, playing surface
properties that are perceived to increase the risk of injury and the playing surface
players perceive to cause the most sports injuries. Data was analysed with SPSS
version 20 and results presented in frequencies and percentages. Results indicates that
common injuries like joint pain/soreness, bruises, cuts/abrasions, back pain, fracture,
dislocation, ligament damage, and shin splints were mostly associated with natural
turf (62.2%) than artificial turf (37.8%). Again, playing surface properties such as
hardness, abrasiveness, grass length, bumpiness, thickness of grass, and level of grip
were perceived to increase the risk of injuries on natural turf than artificial turf.
Results from research question three revealed that 76% of division-two players
perceived injury rate to be more on natural playing surfaces than artificial playing
surfaces. It was concluded that participants perceived sports injuries to be associated
more with natural turf than artificial turf. I recommend that more research is carried
out in other regions to ascertain how players perceive injury on playing surfaces so
that expert decisions can be made to reduce the incidence of injuries caused by
playing surfaces.
Description:
A thesis in the Department of Health Physical Education, Recreation
and Sports, Faculty of Health, Allied Science and Home Economics Education,
submitted to the School of Graduate Studies in partial fulfillment
of the requirements for the award of degree of
Master of Philosophy
(Physical Education)
in the University of Education, Winneba