Care
Keeping a hand-stitched ball
A stitched ball asks for five minutes a season.
None of this is delicate. It is thirty-two panels of polyurethane over foam, closed with waxed thread around a latex bladder, and it was built to be kicked. But the seam that makes it fly is thread under tension, and thread answers to pressure, water and heat.
Pressure
We recommend 9 to 10 pounds per square inch. The valve panel on the ball is printed 8 to 11 psi, which is the range it is built for. Please do not over-inflate, and besides who wants to play with a rock?
The needle
Wet the needle before it goes in. A dry needle could tear the valve, and a torn valve ends a bladder that would otherwise outlast the panels. The pump needle that comes with will likely outlast everything.
After a wet game
Wipe it down and let it dry, away from a radiator or a hot car. A stitched ball might take on a minuscule amount of water through the seam where a bonded ball does not. That is the trade for the seam, and it costs you a towel.
Ground
Grass and turf are what this ball is built for. Concrete, asphalt and chain link fences will wear the panels and the stitching faster than anything else you can do to it.
Storage
Out of season, let some air out and keep it somewhere dry and cool. A ball left fully inflated in a hot garage all winter does not come back the same shape.
Something wrong with a ball that is not your doing? Write to info@hayworthathletic.com. We do not take balls back to Monguí for repair, and we will not pretend otherwise, but we want to know, and we stand behind what leaves the workshop.