The Summer football debate

[sergie's no1 fan]

Surely days like today disprove this notion?

We are nearly into April and there is some mental weather happening today. I went to Rugby park last May and it was there was a monsoon going on.

I'd argue there should be a winter break for a couple of weeks to let teams re-charge the batteries and with money bring a bit tighter at that time of year it could help out the fans.

Is there anybody on here in favour of Summer football that could tell me the advantages or difference between going to a game in conditions like today or January it would be greatly appreciated.

[invergowrie arab]

I used to be in favour until I remembered what a winter international break weekend is like. Utter shite.

I'll happily sit in sub zero temperatures I have a coat.

[banana]

Search function.

[Pull My Strings]

Surely days like today disprove this notion?

We are nearly into April and there is some mental weather happening today. I went to Rugby park last May and it was there was a monsoon going on.

I'd argue there should be a winter break for a couple of weeks to let teams re-charge the batteries and with money bring a bit tighter at that time of year it could help out the fans.

Is there anybody on here in favour of Summer football that could tell me the advantages or difference between going to a game in conditions like today or January it would be greatly appreciated.

I wonder whether any research has been carried out which would answer that gnarly old question once and for all: is the weather nicer in summer?

For some the answer is obvious but there's room for an alternative view and it was pure minging yesterday. Really makes you think.

[kingjoey]

The thing that always gets me in the summer football debate, is, do people that advocate summer football think that the whole season would be played in May, June, July, August and September. At the moment we have June and the bulk of July free from domestic football. So, if for the sake of argument, we have the two months off as December and January, we would still ha to play in October, November, February, March and, as is now, a freezing April. When you hear the guys on the radio talking about summer football, they make it sound as if we would watch the whole season in shirt sleeves and applying constant sun tan lotion. Utter nonsense.

[Bigmouth Strikes Again]

Sound the horn.......

[banana]

The thing that always gets me in the summer football debate, is, do people that advocate summer football think that the whole season would be played in May, June, July, August and September. At the moment we have June and the bulk of July free from domestic football. So, if for the sake of argument, we have the two months off as December and January, we would still ha to play in October, November, February, March and, as is now, a freezing April. When you hear the guys on the radio talking about summer football, they make it sound as if we would watch the whole season in shirt sleeves and applying constant sun tan lotion. Utter nonsense.

A few freezing days in March/April is a bizarre counterpoint to summer football. Noone is saying that March and April won't exist any more.

Advocates are well aware that it's not June weather yeah-round outside of winter. The point is to replace three months of winter football with three months summer football. Turning a negative weather-wise into a positive.

[P45]

Personally I don't like going out in winter so I'd prefer to watch the football in summer.

But it wouldn't add to the support.

[Pull My Strings]

A few freezing days in March/April is a bizarre counterpoint to summer football. Noone is saying that March and April won't exist any more.

Advocates are well aware that it's not June weather yeah-round outside of winter. The point is to replace three months of winter football with three months summer football. Turning a negative weather-wise into a positive.

There are two or three potentially good arguments against summer football:

• traditionally football is a winter sport and this is important to some people;
• people tend to have other interests and pursuits in the summer which might conflict with their interest in football;
• the European footballing calendar tends to run from August to May and taking the Scottish game out of synch with (most of) the rest of Europe may be problematic.

To instead pick out one random day in March (when we'd be playing either way) and suggest that this means summer football wouldn't mean better weather for players and fans is just painfully idiotic.

[Urban Gorilla]

I used to be in favour until I remembered what a winter international break weekend is like. Utter shite.

I'll happily sit in sub zero temperatures I have a coat.

I used to favour summer football but you've nailed it here. When there is no football on at the weekend it's shite. At least in the summer we have golf/Wimbledon etc to get into and holidays to go on. I can see both sides of the argument though.

[kingjoey]

A few freezing days in March/April is a bizarre counterpoint to summer football. Noone is saying that March and April won't exist any more.

Advocates are well aware that it's not June weather yeah-round outside of winter. The point is to replace three months of winter football with three months summer football. Turning a negative weather-wise into a positive.

But it's not three months. It's t even two full months. The Scottish Cup Final this season is on 30th May and the new season starts in July. You could more or less call it summer football now!

[banana]

But it's not three months. It's t even two full months. The Scottish Cup Final this season is on 30th May and the new season starts in July. You could more or less call it summer football now!

Last league game of the season is early to mid May. First game of this season was August 10th. Three months.

Let it go, joey, embrace the summer footie!

[HibeeJibee]

It's unnecessary, undesirable and unworkable.

Close the thread, tbh.

[SCDave]

All for summer fitba tbh, there was a good quote recently from an interview with Alan Burrows where he said something along the lines of "Imagine you were starting the sport again from scratch, when would you choose to play it?", in my opinion that would be over summer.

Edit: Here's the article http://www.heraldscotland.com/sport/football/state-of-scottish-football-part-iii.119928972

The actual quote is "Put it this way. If you were starting football as a new sport now, when would you play it? Naturally, it would be through the summer."

[HibeeJibee]

Football isn't starting again from scratch, though.

[banana]

It's unnecessary, undesirable and unworkable.

Close the thread, tbh.

Put your opinions away, folks, He's answered the horn!

[RandomGuy.]

The negatives far outweigh the positives

[Pull My Strings]

It's unnecessary, undesirable and unworkable.

Close the thread, tbh.

Thanks, now that we know your previously undisclosed opinion you need never comment on the subject ever again. There's a good chap.

[HibeeJibee]

Put your opinions away, folks, He's answered the horn!

There are plenty arguments against it - oft debated - but you don't have to go that far. It simply doesn't work if you play the number of games we do.

Here is an example of a 'summer' season for the year 2016... Season starting in the middle of January, and the Scottish Cup Final the weekend before Christmas.

Obviously you could trim the odd date here and there - play the weekend of the Euro 2016 Final but hope all the players had returned, double-up on a Scottish Cup replay midweek, or whatever - to start one week later, but nothing significant. Plus clubs may not want to play every midweek in Jan-Feb.

Unless the idea would be to play through Euro 2016 (at which plenty players and hopefully Scotland will be present), it's nuts.

2016

Jan 02 --

... MW --

Jan 09 --

... MW --

Jan 16 -- Prem #1

... MW -- Prem #2

Jan 23 -- Prem #3

... MW -- LC R2

Jan 30 -- Prem #4

... MW -- Prem #5

Feb 06 -- Prem #6

... MW -- LC R3

Feb 13 -- Prem #7

... MW -- CL & EL

Feb 20 -- Prem #8

... MW -- CL & EL

Feb 27 -- Prem #9

... MW -- LC R4

Mar 05 -- Prem #10

... MW -- CL & EL

Mar 12 -- Prem #11

... MW -- CL & EL

Mar 19 -- Prem #12

... MW -- International Break

Mar 26 -- International Break

... MW -- International Break

Apr 02 -- Prem #13

... MW -- CL & EL

Apr 09 -- Prem #14

... MW -- CL & EL

Apr 16 -- Prem #15 / LC SFs

... MW -- Prem #16

Apr 23 -- Prem #17

... MW -- CL & EL

Apr 30 -- Prem #18

... MW -- CL & EL

May 07 -- Prem #19

... MW -- Prem #20

May 14 -- Prem #21 / LC Final

... MW -- EL

May 21 -- Prem #22

... MW -- Euro 2016 rest

May 28 -- CL / Euro 2016 rest

... MW -- Euro 2016 rest

Jun 04 -- Euro 2016 rest

... MW -- Euro 2016 rest

Jun 11 -- Euro 2016

... MW -- Euro 2016

Jun 18 -- Euro 2016

... MW -- Euro 2016

Jun 25 -- Euro 2016

... MW -- Euro 2016

Jul 02 -- Euro 2016

... MW -- Euro 2016

Jul 09 -- Euro 2016

... MW -- CL & EL

Jul 16 -- Prem #23

... MW -- CL & EL

Jul 23 -- Prem #24

... MW -- CL & EL

Jul 30 -- SC R4

... MW -- CL & EL

Aug 06 -- Prem #25

... MW -- SC / SC replays

Aug 13 -- Prem #26

... MW -- CL & EL

Aug 20 -- Prem #27

... MW -- CL & EL

Aug 27 -- Prem #28

... MW -- International Break

Sep 03 -- International Break

... MW -- International Break

Sep 10 -- SC R5

... MW -- CL & EL

Sep 17 -- Prem #29

... MW -- SC replays

Sep 24 -- Prem #30

... MW -- CL & EL

Oct 01 -- Prem #31

... MW -- International Break

Oct 08 -- International Break

... MW -- International Break

Oct 15 -- SC R6

... MW -- CL & EL

Oct 22 -- Prem #32

... MW -- SC replays

Oct 29 -- Prem #33 (Splits)

... MW -- CL & EL

Nov 05 -- SC SFs

... MW -- International Break

Nov 12 -- International Break

... MW -- International Break

Nov 19 -- Prem #34

... MW -- CL & EL

Nov 26 -- Prem #35

... MW -- Prem #36

Dec 03 -- Prem #37

... MW -- CL & EL

Dec 10 -- Prem #38

... MW -- Playoff

Dec 17 -- SC Final / Playoff

... MW --

Dec 24 --

... MW --

Dec 31 --

[Deestruction]

It takes 39/40 weeks to play our whole season, so let's assume we are doing it from the first weekend in March until the last one in November. You're taking out months which have an average high temperature of 3-5 degrees and replacing them with months which have 16-19 degrees average highs. I think you'd see a different result to the Irish crowd level as football is such a key sport here for us. I'd expect an increase in the region of 10% over the course of the season.

The only problem I forsee is pitch quality. It's near impossible to grow or repair your pitches during the winter, so you'd look at getting those cool as f**k heating lamps. After purchase you look at around £65K annually to use them. Not too bad of an expense if you can get the crowd increase to be substantial enough. Plus it'd likely allow you to shorten the season length as you could keep the pitches good enough to play midweeks too. Probably taking out another month of the season - making it mid-March to mid November. Euro and WC years you could revert to the extra month schedule.