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Nice insight into how the teams in the lower leagues manage to keep in shape during a bad weather period.
It's also good to read that members of the comunity are still there willing to pitch in to help their local clubs. This is what football should be about.

The lower leagues (as well as football in Scotland) still maintain (to a certain degree) the post war social democratic ethos instilled by the governments after the second world war. We seldom see this form of collectivist response to any situation these-days, in any walk of life. Here we have fans turning up to aid their local football clubs, not out of any self interest or motivation, but because of a sense of duty towards their local club and community. Unfortunately, this sort of philosophy has slowly been eroded since Thatcher's rampant privatisation and the changing philosophical paradigm since the 1980s, where the ideology of "every man for himself" took primacy, and this philosophy has undoubtedly infiltrated every aspect of modern life, whether its football, industry, government, etc.

I believe that in the next decade, we may see another paradigm shift affecting political, social and economic philosophies. Hopefully, having seen the success of the German Bundlesliga's socioeconomic model with low prices, standing areas and competitive games, the English FA will realise we need a return to the social democracy of the post war period, not necessarily in terms of political policies, but in terms of attitude. After the stadium tragedies and problem of hooliganism, it is unmistakable that the FA actively wanted to make football a more "middle class" game at the expense of the working classes. The knock on effect of that policy is working class fans not being able to afford the exorbitant prices, and the increasingly commericalised nature of the game, although this has happened mainly due to more free market approach taken by countries since the 80s, which has unsurprisingly affected football as well, with foreign takeovers, etc.

The problems the lower leagues are suffering with regards to cancelled games and the lack of concern from the football fraternity is not so much the fault of the individual teams' chairmen, but this self interested philosophy that has contaminated people in general. The solution, although it might seem extreme, is possibly the nationalisation of the football in England and/or clubs being run as collectives so that it is run with the welfare of the fans at the forefront of the clubs objectives. Moreover, with a nationalised league, the incentive is for all the clubs to pull in the same direction, and help each other out. This will not diminish the rivalries that exist, but ultimately, most football clubs are united in their formations and, although a lot of people say football and politics should be kept separate, one cannot deny the social and political significance that football has, and that should be used to unite clubs.

England simply can't deal with snow.

Well that's truly taken the sting out of my comment!!

I run a local boys team (local to Aldershot) and we train at the Aldershot Garrison pitches - all weather - although these have been unplayable as has every grain of grass in the area. However we don't have the power to use Ash Manor or other such sporting colleges, we just have to basically wait.

So whilst League Two is getting worse and worse, the impact on grass roots football, and particularly youth football is going to have a massive problem.

The knock-on from here, is that the leagues (my lot are Under 14's) will now play two or three games a week on hard pitches in the summer just to get the games in, which will lead to injuries, problems and the lack of rehabilitation of the pitches.

So is their an answer?

-Winter breaks are not suitable as you cannot predict when the weather will come to bear.
-Shared/Council pitches are now massively over-used but will "Sunday League" football ever be scrapped.

Answers on a postcard???

It has also hit the Irish league pretty bad.

Loss in ticket sales is HUGE for the clubs in Northern Ireland.

Thank you... Its very nice to have a little light shone on the lower leagues, and to be honest its nice to hear something positive about my little town. I'll be honest i wasn't one with my shovel out at the rec but the growing community of our club in the last three years is brilliant, long may it continue... As a fan it has been very frustrating not be able to watch any footy, but the players must be getting cabin fever... Roll on tuesday. I counted only yesterday and in the last 53 days we have played 5 matches (and one of them was an absolute whomping to Burton, so it doesn't really count!)... But i can confirm from my walk to work today that all the snow has finally left aldershot now...

Thanks again Fletch, great to read about my club, and you even managed to mention my old school...

It's great to support a lower league team, the standard and entertainment value is pretty good too I've been able to surprise some of my friends who doubted that.
Regarding sponsorship and advertising, I was at Accrington for the local derby vs Bury on 28th December (4-2 to Bury to prove the point above) - at both ends behind the goal at Crowne Park, are boards promoting a certain brand of pie - at half time I went to order one and there were no pies in stock! Oops!

The problem is also compounded by the fact thqt postponed games are resheduled for mid week meaning lower gates, and lower revenue.

For Macc Town midweek vs saturday can mean a £10k loss in gate money alone.

Nice to see the players helping aswell at some clubs as they earn their wages from the real fans who turn up. It means alot to meet the players and hear their thoughts on the game/club when you see them on the pitch every week. After doing this myself I now have better understanding on some of the issues I had with certain things that happen at my local club.
SR819, I have had to read that 3 times, great post! I agree that much could be learnt from Germany and other countries but I strongly beleive the FA feel they are superior and will not listen. Be good to see some increased input at top levels of the FA from the lower leagues as they can give an alternative view on many situations to create better solutions for all.

SR819, I don't agree with you on several points and think you are trying to make a political point out of football.

First of all on Saturday the 9th January many games were cancelled due to the weather conditions. Many games were cancelled because of the surrounding areas were too dangerous and/or the pitch was unplayable.

Those with working underground soil heating would have got their pitch ready but what can they do about the surrounding areas, local authorities had to treat important roads. Not pavements and roads just to get to 1 game. If Man Utd, Liverpool or Chelsea needed fans to clear snow then they would show up in their thousands.

I wanted to watch my team play Chesterfield, i offered to come down early with a shovel and help. The club called it off because it was an impossible task to get the pitch playable. I'm would not consider myself 'working class' but i am very passionate about my team.

I pay much more for a ticket now than i did when i first started going and it does concerned some people might be missing out. The price is not value for money (£19 per game) and i am currently watching the worst season for a long time.

I think measures need to be brought in to safeguard the clubs future. The last thing we want is the beautiful game nationalised. This current government has enough problems and what is too say they wouldn't make cut backs, possibily think it would be a good idea that Bristol only had 1 team.

Just spoken to an upper table league 2 club and they reckon on a 20% drop in attendance budget-wise for midweek vs saturday matches.

Maybe Accrington and Aldershot are trying to put on a positive spin?

Brilliant article! And great to hear more about the lower leagues.

One thing your article didn't mention was the cost to fans when games are cancelled (particularly at the last minute).

I was already in Darlington for the Darlington v Aldershot match on Saturday when they called it off - having driven for five and a bit hours and paid the cost of fuel and a hotel room. Given the distances and the price of travelling, a bit more thought for the fans wouldn't go amiss!

#2: SR819:

Excellent comment. I completely agree with you.

Bring back the oranage ball. No harm in a bit of snow. It's the police and council that's the big problem these days calling off games not the snow.

Check out Luton vs Pompey with orange ball in 1994



and Estonia vs Canada in 20cms of snow and -6 in 2008...

Im worried - as we will be there in a few years :)
Shotsphil - next time you play darlo you and RBA can stay at mine!!! Up the shots

I'd like to see Robinho and Man City's other prima donnas shovelling snow. Then they'd know what real work is, instead of prancing around for 50 minutes for £150,000 a week

Spare a thought for Gills fans and players who have had to go up to Accrington twice to find out the game is postponed! Not me personally but I have some friends who were getting really paranoid earlier today, expecting the game to be called off again!

Good blog :)

Great blog again Fletch, always a pleasure to read.

I also agree with much of #2 says, seemingly David Sullivan does too following his comments today re: West Ham's proposed move to the Olympic Stadium; "If we have a huge ground, we can take football back to the people, reduce admission prices and become the cheapest Premier League ground in the country."

The "upper table" side is more than probably Bournemouth, who suffer from away fans missing a nice weekend in the sun :-) even Aldershot fans (I live in Ash too RBA92) were complaining that their games were a Tuesday night and never got a weekend outing.

We also suffer from the "Red/White mob down the road" fans not bothering to transition the Hampshire-Dorest Divide during rush hour for a game, whereas quite happy to take on extra games when South*mpton are away and then boo and moan at our player that the standard is rubbish.

Note no-one picked up on previous comments on youth football - unsuprisingly.

I disagree with shotsphil. When you travel to an away match at this time of year (especially with the relatively harsh winter we've had this time around), surely any sensible fan would know that there's a risk of the match being called off. It's not always easy for a football club to be able to say a day in advance whether the match will be on or not. In the case of Darlington v Aldershot, the game was off due to a waterlogged pitch - the club expected it to be playable but the rain carried on more than they expected.

Yes, it's a pain when you've travelled a long way and paid for somewhere to stay - I can empathise with that - but this is an inherent risk when you travel to a League 2 away match in winter. Basically, these things happen and it's nobody's fault.

I agree completely.

Good to see how football teams deal with the weather.

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