FREEZING MOMENTS

21st January 2023 is a bitterly cold day, sunny but with a majority number of professional matches postponed, both in England and Scotland and all minor games having no chance of being played despite a warmer afternoon. Matches tomorrow will be in doubt too.

On this date in 2017, the postponement of the League 1 match between Southend United and Bolton Wanderers due to a frozen pitch, was to prove a reminder to us that it takes a team of people to put on a football match. At Southend, one of that team, groundsman Ken Hare, was sacked and effectively blamed for the postponement. 

Head groundsman Ken Hare had been at Southend for 27 years with his efforts being rewarded with a club statement saying ‘People generally lose their position as a result of not doing their job.’ A nationwide campaign failed to get him his job back although part of the ‘mutually acceptable’ settlement reached four months later included a pair of Southend season tickets for him!

There was a time, before global warming came along, when winters in this country were long and cold with snow a regular feature in all parts of the country. By far the worst winter to affect football was in the 1962/63 season when a 'big freeze' decimated football in this country for three months with hundreds of matches being called off or abandoned.

The freezing conditions hit the country just before Christmas 1962. For the next three months the list of postponements indicate just how bad things were. Only three FA Cup third round ties were played on the scheduled date, January 5th, with the last tie in that round being played on March 11th. The Lincoln v Coventry tie was called off 15 times and fourteen of the other ties suffered ten or more postponements (also causing problems for programme printers. 

From December 8th, when they beat Spurs 1-0, to 16th February when they lost 3-2 at Arsenal, Bolton Wanderers did not play a single competitive match. 

Long before the days when undersoil heating, various ideas were tried to beat the freeze - including a tar-burner at Chelsea, flame-throwers at Blackpool and braziers at Stoke's Victoria Ground (below). However, even if a pitch was made playable the terraces and surrounds to the ground were often left treacherous, forcing a postponement and of course, travel for spectators was not easy.

The Football Pools were a far more important part of life in the 1960s than they are now and the postponements obviously hit them hard as well. After three Saturdays in succession when the coupons were declared void the 'Pools Panel' came into being. The first panel of experts consisted of four former players (Ted Drake, Tom Finney, Tommy Lawton and George Young) and a former ref (Arthur Ellis) and determined the results for four more Saturdays and became a regular feature in the winters to come. In their first Saturday of deliberations, January 26th 1963, the chairman of the Panel, Lord Brabazon,  declared seven draws, 23 home wins and eight away wins.

It wasn't until March 16th - nearly three months after the big freeze started - when a complete programme of football was played again. The season was eventually extended to the end of May.