Mick's Musings
Mon 25th August 2014 | General | By Mick Storey
SUMMER DAYS DRIFTING AWAY......
I’ve never been one who paid much attention to people who bang on about the merits of summer football.
As a nation, in summer we get out and about, watch a bit of cricket, and in between the showers we get the barbie out. There’s World Cups and Euro finals every other year, and generally those of us who follow football can find other things to do on a Saturday afternoon for a couple of months, before the action all starts again.
But I must admit, over the past week or so, I have wondered if maybe in the North West Counties League - and for that matter non-league football in general - people should look a bit more at trying to make the best of the summer weather.
Look at the weather we have had since the season started. Nice weather in July was all forgotten during the opening day fixtures on the 2nd August as many were played in torrential rain - then the next weekend we had glorious sunshine cracking the flags.
Nothing unusual about that when you’re used to living in the North of England, but if we can’t guarantee decent weather in August, there’s no point in expecting all to go to plan in December or January.
You’ll never convert me totally to the idea of summer football – likewise artificial pitches but that is another article for another day – but I have to admit the last couple of weeks have made me wonder if there is a compromise we could look at.
A few weeks back I was checking on the pre-season fixtures listed on this very League website. From memory teams started playing in the first week of July, and there were definitely a long list of games on 12th July. So, if pitches are ready and squads are getting together by then, why can’t we be kicking off the league season on the last Saturday in July, or even earlier?
Think about it. Over the years, we have seen games getting crammed in at the end of the season with teams playing silly amounts of games in April because of bad weather in winter. That's not just in the Counties, it's happened elsewhere as well.
So why not try and avoid that by starting a week or two earlier, and then if it is a bad winter, all clubs are a few fixtures ahead of where they would be compared to if they had started in early August.
It’s not a total move to summer football, but it gives us all a chance to watch a few more games in (hopefully) good weather, and at the end of the season it would help to stop clubs having mad fixture pile ups.
And of course, there’s no Premiership games to contend with as competition either, so you might attract someone who is in need of a live football fix, before he settles down in his armchair week in week out to watch his favourites on telly.
And just to throw another idea into the pot - how about, for Saturday games in July and the ones we play now in early August, we try early evening kick offs, say at 5 pm or 6pm?
You might attract people on the way back from a day out, and maybe folk on their way out on Saturday night can play in or watch a game in decent weather and then head off for a night out afterwards.
Can anyone give me a good reason why we can’t at least give it a try?
Until the next time………
Mick
The views expressed by Mick Storey in this column are his own, and do not represent the views of the North West Counties Football League Management Committee or League officers.
If you want to send your comments on this article to Mick, you can contact him on Twitter - @mickeystorey.
Mick's Musings
Mon 25th August 2014 | General
By Mick Storey
SUMMER DAYS DRIFTING AWAY......
I’ve never been one who paid much attention to people who bang on about the merits of summer football.
As a nation, in summer we get out and about, watch a bit of cricket, and in between the showers we get the barbie out. There’s World Cups and Euro finals every other year, and generally those of us who follow football can find other things to do on a Saturday afternoon for a couple of months, before the action all starts again.
But I must admit, over the past week or so, I have wondered if maybe in the North West Counties League - and for that matter non-league football in general - people should look a bit more at trying to make the best of the summer weather.
Look at the weather we have had since the season started. Nice weather in July was all forgotten during the opening day fixtures on the 2nd August as many were played in torrential rain - then the next weekend we had glorious sunshine cracking the flags.
Nothing unusual about that when you’re used to living in the North of England, but if we can’t guarantee decent weather in August, there’s no point in expecting all to go to plan in December or January.
You’ll never convert me totally to the idea of summer football – likewise artificial pitches but that is another article for another day – but I have to admit the last couple of weeks have made me wonder if there is a compromise we could look at.
A few weeks back I was checking on the pre-season fixtures listed on this very League website. From memory teams started playing in the first week of July, and there were definitely a long list of games on 12th July. So, if pitches are ready and squads are getting together by then, why can’t we be kicking off the league season on the last Saturday in July, or even earlier?
Think about it. Over the years, we have seen games getting crammed in at the end of the season with teams playing silly amounts of games in April because of bad weather in winter. That's not just in the Counties, it's happened elsewhere as well.
So why not try and avoid that by starting a week or two earlier, and then if it is a bad winter, all clubs are a few fixtures ahead of where they would be compared to if they had started in early August.
It’s not a total move to summer football, but it gives us all a chance to watch a few more games in (hopefully) good weather, and at the end of the season it would help to stop clubs having mad fixture pile ups.
And of course, there’s no Premiership games to contend with as competition either, so you might attract someone who is in need of a live football fix, before he settles down in his armchair week in week out to watch his favourites on telly.
And just to throw another idea into the pot - how about, for Saturday games in July and the ones we play now in early August, we try early evening kick offs, say at 5 pm or 6pm?
You might attract people on the way back from a day out, and maybe folk on their way out on Saturday night can play in or watch a game in decent weather and then head off for a night out afterwards.
Can anyone give me a good reason why we can’t at least give it a try?
Until the next time………
Mick
The views expressed by Mick Storey in this column are his own, and do not represent the views of the North West Counties Football League Management Committee or League officers.
If you want to send your comments on this article to Mick, you can contact him on Twitter - @mickeystorey.
