Give me a break? No chance!

Posted on January 2, 2011 Updated on January 2, 2011

One; One solitary match is all that we (Colchester United)
played in the whole of December 2010! The weather did for most of
sport in the UK and Ireland as well as large parts of the rest of
Western Europe. It has therefore reignited the debate over the
mid-season break for sport. There are many sides to this debate but
overwhelmingly there is agreement that it’s just too difficult to
decide when any such break should occur. Take for example the last
two years where there has been significant snowfall just prior to
Christmas. This would point to a mid-season break being ideally in
December. Five months done since pre-season and with five months of
the season to go, the changing of surface conditions during
training, as well as a chance for a little reconditioning as the
demands of the season become increasingly hard. Christmas
celebrated with everyone else. Not on your life the business men
would say – Christmas brings in bumper crowds, and a rare chance to
sell all that additional merchandise. It’s also a great time, if it
happens to your team, to get some real momentum running as the
games come thick and fast. So managers too would be only too keen
to get the games on. For players, I’m not too sure… On to
January; traditionally a month with the most disruptive weather. FA
Cup time in football! Preparations for the Six Nations in Rugby.
Major phases in the season then. Yes a match free weekend would be
great to give everyone a break after the hectic Christmas schedule.
However, I would suspect, the everyone would ramp up training for a
few days ( some topping up if you like) and then send everyone away
for a long weekend. But now the transfer window is in January,
deals need to be done. And that means getting the new boys to
quickly gel with the old ones and build some team spirit. The
business men won’t want it and neither would the managers who are
busy either reinforcing a successful or a struggling team. In fact
many teams, in the top levels of sport use January for warm weather
training camps in Spain, Portugal and Dubai. They create their own
mini-breaks and they can afford it but that isn’t a possibility for
the other clubs, who because of their less than premier facilities,
may already be adding games into an already crowded fixture
schedule. it is worth remembering that a lower end Premier League
Team may play up to 10less matches in the season than some of the
more successful Championship or League 1/2 teams. A winter break is
fine in theory – in practice it’s too difficult to manage. We could
all have a break, the weather would be fine and when we return from
it, a nicely timed cold front could mean we are back to square one
with regards to fixture congestion. Which is exactly where we are
now! Best we live things as they are.