With high profile televised matches every week at the Goodison Park stadium, the club was keen to find a mixture to offer superb colour for the cameras throughout the season.

British Seed Houses identified the perfect solution in A20, a four-rye blend and an ideal mixture for sports grounds, offering a high tolerance to wear, rapid establishment and great winter colour.

At the training ground near Halewood on Merseyside, 12-14 pitches are in use during the season, and are seeded with a number of different mixtures to permit assessment of the ultimate combination.

Four of the training pitches are reserved for the first team, and of these the match pitch is seeded with A20, giving the team identical conditions to those in the stadium.