Summer Football

Not with you on this one Dave. Presume footy played in winter as cricket was already established. Other sports like squash are also played in winter. The best thing about the winter is the unpredictability. You just cant beat playing on different surfaces. While playing for the august reserve teams of Foxhole, Galmpton and Chudleigh in the South Devon league you couldnt beat running around at Teign Village or Kellaton in a gale on a glue pot of a pitch hammering with rain. Anything to eliminate skill, not that there was a huge amount to eliminate anyway. Who on this forum went to Barrow in October 1967. We were the last unbeaten league team in the country. It had been pouring with rain in the area for the previous 48hours. Remember the Holker Street pitch, it actually had dandelions growing out of it, the grass was so long (and covered with daisies). I like that - different. Oh, we lost 3-0. The point is that playing in the summer on manicured pitches would make it too much of a level playing field (sorry). I go misty eyed when I think of Hereford putting Newcastle out of the FA Cup on a pitch that resembled an allotment. Summer football would be all to do with skill, it would be more boring and the elements would not have any bearing on the result. The elements add another dimension to the game that must be retained.

Sam you make some good points and yes I would agree winter pitches were more often levelers and gave the lesser team a better opportunity to get a result.

Football is a skill game and how often does the lesser team raise their own game and play far better than their league status would suggest.I don't buy the pitch argument, as most pitches these days are far better than they use to be and you no longer see the bogs that were meant to be pitches these days.

My view is that football would get bigger gates as it would be a more pleasurable experience on a nice summer evening, than a cold January night.

I used to be a proponent of summer football, but not now.

If we had a "winter break" just as the French and the Germans do, just think what would be happening currently. If that break coincided with the transfer window we would now be frustrated because the re-opening of the season had been wiped out whilst during our enforced shut down, the weather was fine.

The FACT is that our island is just that - a rock in the Northern Atlantic just off the main land mass of Northern Europe and as such our weather will always be milder than the summer weather of the continent and winter too, but less predictable.

I once refereed a game in Jersey in sub zero conditions and the game was only playable because they had chucked tons and tons of sand on the Springfield Stadium pitch and then rolled it flat! Jersey's efforts at coping with the roads consisted of land rovers going around and sand (not salt or grit) being shovelled over the side by the way!

I think the Rugby League move from winter to summer had as much to do with it's closer affiliation with the Union game these days as much as anything else, and I don't think it's had as much an impact on their attendances as they thought it would.

At the end of the day, we would STILL hear negativity and the like from Torbay.................."summer football? Oh everyone's working and hasn't got time to go to Plainmoor" I can just hear it now, and it IS a fact that in some industrial areas the early games of the season in August DO suffer from decreased attendances due to so many people being away on holiday.

No, leave well alone I now say in my old age; and I am one who really suffers when the cold gets into my arthritic old joints!

Andy you say you are a traditionalist, I think that word best describes me in so many things in life, its maybe the main reason I love the royal family and all that goes with it. The changing of the guard and all the great parades that take place, that must in my view always be protected and never allowed to die.

I do feel that many real British traditions have been lost and the every changing country we live in has played its part because we have lost so much that was always considered as the British way, but that is a whole different argument and its my hope that we find away to stop our country losing any more.

I do have it in my head that at one time football was not a winter sport, I may be wrong on this but I'm sure a long time ago I did read something on this subject. You say that we would need a good sport to watch during the winter, I for one would love to see Ice hockey really become a much bigger sport here in the UK.

Chris says "There's something wonderful about watching football in the cold, sipping a bovril or an overpriced Cup-a-Soup and then enjoying the car's heater on the journey back home." I do find that a rather caveman outlook and question why anyone in the days of modern creature comforts, wants to pay to watch a form of entertainment and then endure complete discomfort for the pleasure.

I can understand why a person may want to walk across the Antarctic, a real personal challenge as he battle against all the odds to achieve some goal that will be recorded in history.I think I nearly understood why some mad man from the USA wanted to be put inside a block of Ice and set some sort of record, but then I did at the time question if such a man was really sane and at the end of the day, was such a feat really even very important.

I can understand why someone would spend six hours on a coach to go and watch their team at Burnley and then just get one and a half hours of game play, only to have a six hour journey home, mind you many people will tell you that you must be mad, even more so when you let them know how much it cost you and that you stood in the most freezing cold wind and had to go straight to bed when you got home.

The point is that while it has often been that way if you wanted to watch a midweek game in January,there really is no good reason that having to suffer the elements really need to be part and parcel of being a football fan. I do stand by my view that many will not leave the comforts of their warm homes, to go out on a foul and bitterly cold night, just to watch a game of football. Sure the die hards will, but being a supporter should not be about who can endure the worst conditions and be brave enough and many will say foolish enough to stand on a freezing cold football terrace and suffer for most of the night.

No real surprise in the post made by Merse that he felt the need to make some silly claim that the people of Torbay would only view any change to summer football, in a negative way and would look to blame their lack of attending Plainmoor due to the fact they were working.

Most summer type jobs are not done by locals these days anyway and most hotels trade the whole year long here, so if you worked in that trade, you would just as likely be unable to attend a mid week game in the winter.I firmly believe that as long as it was marketed properly, TUFC could really benefit by the extra number of people who will be in Torbay during the summer months, now I don't think a real local making such a statement could be called negative,but then merse would not be merse if he could not get just one dig in at the local people of Torbay.

I would say those afraid of any change could be guilty of negativity, I hear that standing in the cold with a cup of bovril being used as a form of defense for winter football, I hear one asking what would we watch in the winter? and say its all about traditions,another stating poor pitches act as some sort of leveler for lesser skilled teams, not a great deal in my view to really put up an argument to not move football to the summer.

Summer football would be played in better conditions on pitches that were also in much better condition, ones that would see skill levels of players improve and anyone will know that a good surface to play on, makes control of the ball and passing it far better.If you think its part and parcel of the game that your player is set to score after some 10 ball passing move, only to see the ball hit a divot and what would have been a certain goal, is missed because the end result was he mis kicked the ball, then fine.

I would rather see such a great build up get the reward it fully deserved and not just feel its just a part of football and adds to the enjoyment, if you play golf and have put your skill and effort in to the game, you would want to see it get its reward, so you would not want the coarse to be set up like a crazy golf one, where it just more depends on luck. Yes I know that luck will still play a part in any game, but you can have some effect on the bad luck that playing on winter pitches often cause.

Tradition is fine, but so is image and I do believe the whole image of the game can be changed and the football can be come a real big family sport and playing in the summer would be a big part of getting more family's to go out and enjoy the sport.

To add further to my argument that I feel football would be better if played in the Summer months, I will share with you how I felt during the day on Tuesday of this week, the day we were due to play Weymouth in the evening.

Before I do that I would say that Dave R the TUFC supporter is not a fan who's support could ever be called into question.I will admit that if I had to miss a game these days, it would not matter as much to me as it once did.

When I was younger I went 12 seasons and never missed one home game, doing this often caused me many problems with the ex wife, as a game may have fell on her birthday or some other family event, but the thought of me and boy wonder Ant not being at a game was one I was never prepared to even consider.

I have told on here the stories of how I had to work 16+ plus hour days on a Friday when I was a milkman, so that I could get finished on a Saturday hopefully in time to make the kick off.At that time I went to all the way matches I could as well and as a result I was often a danger to myself and others, but then I was younger and did not see danger in the same way I do now.

If it was a mid week evening away game, I would call at the ground and see Hazel to book on the supporters coach, who remembers her? it was in the John Turner days when he was the club secretary, mind you I did get to talk with her after all the years she gave to our club and how she felt Bateson had treated her and had her removed, some not so nice allegations had been aimed her way.

On the day of the match I would have been delivering the milk from 3am, in the dark and often in the worst conditions, as over night rain can be some of the worst rain you will be in. Often soaked to the skin and no heaters in an electric milk float, it was not an enjoyable experience I can tell you.

Hopefully finished by 11am and then home for a hot bath and a quick change of clothes as I rushed against the clock to get over to Plainmoor to board the coach.I have never been one who can fall asleep on a coach, so I was always awake during the trip and often had my fellow milkman mate Brian Carpenter fast asleep beside me and to some it must have looked we were gay, because it looked as if he was cuddled up to me.

After the game and back on the coach and a return to the bay in the early hours of the morning, not time to go home and so it was straight back out on the milk float for me. I will confess there were a few times when I must have fell asleep driving the float at 3 or 4 am in the morning, often a pothole was my saviour as it woke me back up.

So about Tuesday of this week then, well I left home at 5.15am and then walked to my garage some 200 yards from my home, there are no street lights and If you saw the size of my torch I use, you would think I worked in search and rescue. It was very cold and I drove over to Newton Abbot. I have to open the gate to the yard where my company has a unit and there is three other companies who have their businesses based there.

There is never anyone around and the odd times I do get a bit nervous, only because of some strange noise I may have heard.Still being on my own and early in the morning is something that has mostly been a part of my life, the only time is was so different was the 10 years I spent as an entertainer, then I would be coming home in the middle of the night.

I set off for North Devon and things were fine until I got to Okehampton, my trip to Holsworthy was soon becoming a major problem, as heavy snow was falling.Even before I got stuck in deep snow in Holsworthy that made it impossible for me to get to the game that night, I was having thoughts about even going.

Here I was now getting very cold and tried also as I had to concentrate so much more to keep my van on the road, I was asking myself did I want to go out in the cold again when I got home. To be honest the thought of getting back home in the warm and with Carol was all that mad me push on and try and combat all that was being thrown at me in North Devon.

I do believe I would not have felt that way in the summer months, my walk to my garage would have been in daylight and not darkness, I would not have had such weather problems to deal with and as is often the case in the summer, I would not want to just get back indoors and shut the door tight. If I has a fan who would want to be a the game felt this way, what chance is there of the floaters or even someone who has never been before, going to the game. Not much of a chance if you ask me and football clubs need to get every paying fan they can these days and summer football would in my view help the cause.

My memory of Hazel is boarding the coach at Molineux.

People were excited, emotional - some laughing, some with tears of joy in their eyes. Hazel was looking miserable and muttering "How the hell am I going to get hold of dozens of coaches on a Bank Holiday weekend?" A true Devon girl, hey Merse?

I think you mean DAVE Turner, Dave. He came with Webby, so was always regarded with a little suspicion. He seemed o.k. but was always miserable. I think it was he who forgot to renew the license at Boots one year. Unfortunately, he passed away a few years ago.

Our forebears who managed to live a crime free life and not get packed off to Botany Bay that's who!