Weather
Give me a break? No chance!
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.
Weather, or not, here we don’t go!
Well, yet another weather affected cancellation of sport that is affecting both players and fans, not to mention the management team. The weather not only causes problems logistically in terms of games having to be rescheduled, but also in the day-to-day planning of training and in making sure the players are in top condition when it comes to matchday!
As frustrating as it is the fans not to see their teams play, it is perhaps more frustrating for the players and the management who spend so much time preparing a team for these matches, the tapering of training (periodisation if you like) means that we’re constantly trying to ensure the players are physical prepared for each match. Not easy when you consider the disparity of facilities available to teams at different levels of the game. Even all-weather pitches are struggling to be available in this bad weather period. It sometimes requires thinking outside the box to keep training fresh and interesting, perhaps thinking of alternative training methods to prevent staleness! Again, not exactly easy at a time of year when other facilities are booked out!!
And with the severity of the weather we’ve experienced even getting to a training ground can cause major problems for players and staff; even getting out of the house can be a major obstacle for most people.
In effect this weather induced break could be a major momentum changer for teams participating in various leagues! Teams that had momentum may lose it, and a team that had none could suddenly gain it! Hardly a great state of affairs if you’ve invested much time creating momentum, team spirit and a great level of physical preparedness! It will require a great art of management to ensure that momentum is maintained, or changed if that’s appropriate, through what has been really difficult period of planning.
Even the possibility of warm weather training camps has been lost, not only because of the schedule of games during December, but because the airports are closed too! However, one benefit of the enforced break is that it does give a fantastic opportunity for injured players to complete their rehab and get back in contention.
So what does all this mean for the rest of the season; a multitude of games to be played in an extraordinarily short period of time placing great demands on the resources of clubs and the roster of players. This plays into the hands of those teams with greater resources able to hold the largest squad, with rotation of their players a possibility in order to maintain freshness.
Extending the length of the season is not a viable option with the end of the season traditionally tied to the play-offs at Wembley; this increases the pressure to shoe-horn games in. So all we can do is prepare the players as best we can and strap ourselves in for a hectic schedules of matches and travelling!
The Dave Carolan Blog 