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BURNS experts are this month calling for a ban on lime-based markings on
sports pitches. The move follows an incident during a soccer game in Wales in
which a goalkeeper was seriously burnt by the corrosive alkali as he made a
goal-line save—and fell directly onto fresh lime markings.

Although hydrated lime—calcium hydroxide—is only used rarely,
owing to its known dangers, it is still used on some pitches, says Derek Walder,
a consultant to Britain’s Institute of Groundsmanship. “There are probably a lot
of amateur clubs that still do it,” he says.

A team led by Viswanathan Narayanan at the Welsh Centre for Burns and Plastic
Surgery at the Morriston Hospital in Swansea report in this month’s edition of
the journal Burns that the goalkeeper’s lime burns covered 5 per cent
of his body. He needed surgery to excise dead skin and to apply skin grafts.
“We’d never seen this in a footballer before,” says Ian Josty, a burns
specialist and colleague of Narayanan. “It’s more common to see it as a result
of working with cement powder. People get that in their wellies and the addition
of a bit of moisture gives a chemical burn.”

In their paper, the burns experts blame “ignorance or inertia to change”
among football clubs for the continued use of lime markings. There are perfectly
safe pitch paints based on vegetable dyes—and these are in wide use among
professional clubs.

“There’s nothing in the rules of the game to say what the pitch markings
should be made of,” says Joe Guest of the Football Association. “It just says
the pitch should be marked with lines.” However, the use of hazardous substances
is barred under the Control of Substances Hazardous to Health (COSSH)
Regulations. But Walder believes a number of clubs—particularly those at
grassroots level—may be unaware of the regulations.

Narayanan and his colleagues want sports authorities to heighten awareness of
the harmful effects of lime—and the existence of safe alternatives. In
addition to reducing preventable injury, they say, safe markings could prevent
costly litigation.