Frozen pitches

[Bronco]

With a warmer weather forecast hopefully it will not matter now, but can we please get away from two things when talking about frozen pitches?

 

1) 'You can get a car key in it'. Players do not have car keys on the bottom of their boots. A football stud is rounder and less sharp, and tends to be a lot larger in size and therefore far less likely to go in. The car key test started out in cricket, and saying you can get a car key in it is like saying you can get a cricket spike in it. I am pretty sure you would not be allowed to wear cricket spikes to play football.

 

2) 'We play on pitches this hard in August'. I would argue pitches are harder when frozen then they are in the summer as the ground does not crumble at all. Nevertheless, it doesn't tend to be slippery in August.

[Valkyrie]

You could add that:

 

1. [As Krooner pointed out in a separate thread] 100% of the pitch must be playable.

 

2. Where pitches have frozen after being played on, any divots and ruts are rock solid which in itself is potentially dangerous to players and officials alike.

[Bronco]

You could add that:

 

1. [As Krooner pointed out in a separate thread] 100% of the pitch must be playable.

 

2. Where pitches have frozen after being played on, any divots and ruts are rock solid which in itself is potentially dangerous to players and officials alike.

Also, one of the first things that refreeze are the small clumps that have been kicked out of divots. These are rock hard very quickly and lethal. The ruts and divots are another very good reason as to why pitches are okay in August. By and large there aren't any then.