Winter Shut Down

[fine-n-dandy]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/football/16383681.stm

 

Germans are certainly pro winter shut down.

 

I am anti Summer football but I am pro winter breaks.

[Dynamo]

Depends what the point in the shut down was. if it was to avoid bad weather then it's pointless because our winter can arrive any time between mid November and the end of March.

 

if it's to give the players a break like in Germany and Italy then possibly.

 

I'd prefer summer football.

[At The Border Guy]

if it was to avoid bad weather then it's pointless because our winter can arrive any time between mid November and the end of March.

 

I've argued this on here before... Plenty of days over the Christmas period which were perfect for playing football, but some horrible weather in November/early December. Reckon they'd be better keeping some free weekends in the second half of the season on which to play postponed matches. Sounds like we'll have a winter break in the next few seasons though.

 

(Overall, I'm pro-summer football though.)

[OddJob]

Said it many times before and still say it now:

 

SUMMER FOOTBALL ALL THE WAY!!!!!!

[V for Vendetta]

I think saying you can't predict the weather is a bit missing the point. I can safely predict we will have winter every year therefore a shutdown can be timed in winter, if it happens to be sub zero the whole of november on year thats not really the point - its about percentages.

 

I'd be for an early start, decent length of break in january and restart in feb.

 

If they wanted to be clever (which they aren't) it would be easy to design a 4 week break in january which included 1 week which was permitted to use for rescheduled games only. Clear the backlog and compensat if say nov or dec was really bad weather.

[fine-n-dandy]

I still say have a winter shut down yes but be flexible with it. As in as best we can at least.

 

Certainly a couple of weeks over the festive period cos that's normally when we certainly get bad weather & results are usually all to fk then as well.

Play MORE midweek games early on in season when the weather suits & be flexible on game call offs for bad weather. If there's extra games played early on it would then leave space for call offs or shut down of sorts as there wouldn't be enough games left to have a game every week through the shite weather.

 

Still a def no to Summer football for me though

[OddJob]

A lot of folk just want summer football so they can get pissed in beer gardens, same as the kind of folk who wanted us to get Rangers away in the cup cause it'd be good banter or whatever.

 

Arrange to play less in winter and more summer midweeks at the start of the season when the weather should be better.

 

It's not rocket science.

Bri i want summer football for the sake of the game tbh. Surely the quality would be a lot better in the summer than the winter?

[Dynamo]

Bri i want summer football for the sake of the game tbh. Surely the quality would be a lot better in the summer than the winter?

 

 

The weather influences the game far too much. In the summer it might not be scorching sunshine but at least it'd be a lot more mild and better football could be played.

[fine-n-dandy]

We seemed to have pretty decent football in Scotland in the past (when we could afford a better class of players) & the weather was just the same.

 

It seems that folk just want change & think that any kind of dramatic change in structure will rectify our shite league.

 

Weather is not our problem. Not one that cannot be worked around & still keeping to a similar start & finishing timetable to the rest of (or most of) Europe.

More midweek games early on in season is a good start & not too dramatic a change

[Quagmire]

The festive holidays wouldnt be the same without any football. Wouldnt bother me too much if they had few weeks break in Jan but the only thing with summer football is the knock on effect it would have on the WC and Euros!

[OddJob]

There's so many changes that need to be done to get everyone interested in the game the way we used to be and summer football is one of these changes imo.

[fine-n-dandy]

There's so many changes that need to be done to get everyone interested in the game the way we used to be and summer football is one of these changes imo.

 

 

Fairer treatment from Sky & the likes is the biggest change that's needed & not for us to play football when everyone else is chilling out.

 

The amount of cash that is injected into the English 1st div & championship is disgusting.

 

& the fact that both these leagues are probably of higher standard than ours now because of this is criminal.

[vanderark14]

We seemed to have pretty decent football in Scotland in the past (when we could afford a better class of players) & the weather was just the same.

 

It seems that folk just want change & think that any kind of dramatic change in structure will rectify our shite league.

 

Weather is not our problem. Not one that cannot be worked around & still keeping to a similar start & finishing timetable to the rest of (or most of) Europe.

More midweek games early on in season is a good start & not too dramatic a change

 

never going to happen, the likes of the OF will greet about it because they have too many games to play.

[zander]

Playing summer football will only succeed in making us more attractive to TV deals and that isn't a bad thing. I don't really care if Football is traditionally played through the winter months here. Think its good for everyone involved and Bri said people who wan't this are those who want to get pished in beer gardens then so be it, I know loads of boys who would be interested in coming to more games if it was a fine day to go to one before and after a game. Maybe a poofish thing for them to do but its guys like them who are staying away week in week out because they can't be arsed watching a poor product in shite weather, at least if the weather is better then they would be more inclined to go.

[baconman]

All for a winter shutdown and prolonging fitba played in the summer perhaps starting in early July.

[fine-n-dandy]

never going to happen, the likes of the OF will greet about it because they have too many games to play.

 

Well they will certainly greet about Summer football as well.

 

Shouldn't matter cos they'll only have one vote soon

[fine-n-dandy]

Playing summer football will only succeed in making us more attractive to TV deals and that isn't a bad thing. I don't really care if Football is traditionally played through the winter months here. Think its good for everyone involved and Bri said people who wan't this are those who want to get pished in beer gardens then so be it, I know loads of boys who would be interested in coming to more games if it was a fine day to go to one before and after a game. Maybe a poofish thing for them to do but its guys like them who are staying away week in week out because they can't be arsed watching a poor product in shite weather, at least if the weather is better then they would be more inclined to go.

 

 

How would it?

 

I ken loads of folk that wouldn't be able to go to games in Summer cos of yearly family Hols some for whole School Hols.

 

Far too many negatives for me in Summer football & the biggest being the transfer window, only be shite that we'd get as there'd be no decent frees available at the right times for us.

 

Would be a complete shambles & make our league look even more semi pro

[fine-n-dandy]

Exactly, summer is the time folk are more likely to have other things to do, i.e more distractions.

 

What is there to distract folk in winter? Oh sorry I might miss Christmas shopping or the first 20 minutes of X Factor

 

The weather would very seldom put me off going to football anyway.

 

 

Exactly. not like you open the curtains & say no it's to cold.

Some may do this but most plan to go to the games long before they know the weather.

 

Every other year would be a tournament as well so the league games would be off for that month at least as well (likely more cos most would want their squads there well in advance) so basically we'd only be playing this Summer football right through Summer every second year.

 

& most of all. Most players have families/kids of their own & this is when they'd have their Summer hols, when the schools are off.

 

It would never work & we'd only attract desperate players & even lower standard than what we attract now.

 

 

Not hearing many decent points FOR summer football.

Only better weather makes better football (jury's out on that as to whether it'd make a whole lot of difference)

Better TV deal but I fail to see the reasoning for this.

 

Much more reasons NOT to make such a drastic change imo.

 

Unless we plan on moving the school holidays as well

[Podge]

I wonder what the attendances would be like, taking into account less folk at summer matches (probably) as well as there being less people at matches when the weather is bad (not sure on this, but surely like last winter, when matches were actually on, a whole lot less people bothered travelling by car/bus in the snow and ice that we had?).

[K-9]

never going to happen, the likes of the OF will greet about it because they have too many games to play.

They would still play the same amount of games!!

[V for Vendetta]

What, all of a sudden we're all going to be playing copacabana football because it's 15 degrees instead of 5 degrees?

 

I'd rather we concentrated on training bairns to play football properly at grassroots level, but then that takes time to bear fruit and folk aren't interested in that sort of thing.

 

Aye but to do that we need the kids to be playing in the summer when they can train and play on grass. Kids are even less able to cope with winter weather than adults so can train less and learn less and ultimately are going to be much poorer developed players because of it.

[Henry]

I see the Ruskies are moving to winter football to match the rest of Europe, incorporating a winter break, rather than the summer schedule they have currently.

[fine-n-dandy]

I see the Ruskies are moving to winter football to match the rest of Europe, incorporating a winter break, rather than the summer schedule they have currently.

 

 

Really?

 

Wonder why?

[ollie1903]

And what's stopping them doing that now? Bairns have six weeks off during the summer FFS.

 

Any time the national team have a bad result or the Old Firm get papped out of Europe folk spit the dummy out and write everything off as being shite, but big changes at grassroots level were a big part of the McLeish report and take years to implement properly. But because it doesn't involve getting pished in beer gardens in Edinburgh in June then nae cunt is interested.

 

The blame culture in Scottish football is the biggest killer IMO, and people like tup suck it up big time. My problem lies in the fact that Aberdeen are shite and rely on other teams being shite to get away with being shite and terribly run - folk poofing out of going to games because it's a bit nippy is a drop in the ocean really.

I remember sitting freezing my bahookies aff with about18000 other bahookie frozen souls in the depths of winter. We were good then, no one complained.

[Foster14]

I remember there being a fair opinion that the season was starting far too early this time. Meant more games in summer, but there wasn't any difference in quality on the pitch or attendances...

[fine-n-dandy]

Although I am anti Summer football, there is ways in which it could be done without too much disruption.

Play a split season eg. Season starts in Feb & stops in end of June for whole of July (or whenever the Major Tournaments are running) & then start up again in Aug until Dec.

Players get much less time off with this though (especially International players) so it's far from perfect.

 

Still fks up the transfer windows a bit but this is as near as Summer football as I would ever hope to go.

 

I'm still more for the more midweek fixtures early on in our current timetable & therefore the transfer still falls on our better times.