The big freeze? It's not a patch on 1963!

[Ian_W]

THE BIG FREEZE? IT’S NOT A PATCH ON 1963!

By Chris Evans

 

 

 

While sub-zero weather conditions wreak havoc amongstfixtures from the elite level down to grassroots, players, officials and supportersare being praised for their patience by the Essex County FA, who have beenforced to call a halt to the majority of their own County Cup ties for theweekend of the 9th and 10th January due to some of the worst snowy weathersince The Big Freeze of 1963.

 

All fixtures scheduled for the Saturday and Sunday Premier Cups, the SundayVeterans’ Cup and the Under 16s and 14s Girls’ Cups have been postponed aspitches suffer from ice cold temperatures and thick blankets of snow. However,reassurance is being offered in comparison to the three-month downfall of theearly sixties, with this year’s burst at its strongest only likely toconstitute a fraction of those harsh severities.

 

While utterances of “If Man City vs Man United doesn’t evensurvive the weather, what chance have we got?” reverberate around local parksand clubs this week, and in the days before undersoil heating became the normin the top tier, things were very different and even the Chelseas of this worldcouldn’t cope with such extremes as frozen fog, -16 climates and even thefreezing over of a mile’s stretch of sea off Herne Bay in Kent!

 

Sheer numbers involved in football at the time weren’t asplentiful as in the present day, with 913 clubs and 36 leagues affiliated in Essex as opposed to 1,598 and 50 now, but www.bbc.co.uk reflected: “The FA Cup drawbecame a farce... “the winners of A or B will play the winners of C or D” etc.etc. Chelsea got so fed up they flew off to Maltato play a friendly and ended up staying for a week. The weather didn’t do themany favours. They’d been on a roll up to the big freeze then once the seasongot going again they went on a loosing streak. Mind you they did get promotedto the old First Division (now the Premiership) in the end, but it all hung onthe final match.”

 

Leafing through the Handbook archive, the Association’sPresident at the time, Sir Stuart Mallison, was only too aware of the climate’seffects. In his message the following year, he wrote: “1962/63 will long beremembered for the worst weather in the history of our football story. Theweather was no respecter of clubs, of local, county, Football League or Cupteams, all were in the same icy grip and the weather was the commondenominator, but with patience and good humour the Clubs adapted themselves. Wemust hope that 1963/4 will enable all to fulfil their programmes up to time.”

 

Meanwhile, in the Essex County Schools FA’s Report for1962/63, LF Birmingham described the pressures of the fixture list: “Up toChristmas the season pursued its normal course but an unprecedented spell ofbad weather, frost, ice, and snow, and its lasting effect on grounds led tolittle or no football being possible in January, February and early March. As aresult the later stages of our Competitions had to be played in the eight weekperiod between mid-March and mid-May. It is to the credit of all theAssociations concerned that by their efforts all the Competitions were finishedby mid-May.”

 

So if you’re looking out of your window wondering when yournext fix of football is likely to arrive, in retrospect we have a lot to begrateful for that this wintry weather is unlikely to last as long as the 1963burst!

 

 

[Big J R]

I'm old enough to remember the 1963 freeze very well.

 

We've still got time to beat that one yet in 2010.

 

Global-Warming ?? Bah-Humbug !!!!