THE BIG FREEZE: Cold snap wipes out all Kent football

Friday 08th January 2010

It’s official - this footballing Saturday is cancelled, writes Mike Green.

Realistically given all the snow and now the ice that the County has suffered over the past two or three days there can be little surprise.

On Thursday morning, Bruce Babcock, the Ryman League secretary issued a communication stating that member clubs could postpone their fixture this week without the necessity of a pitch inspection – and to be fair to the Ryman League its good to see that common sense prevails over a wish and a personal desire to watch football on a Saturday afternoon.

Gillingham’s League One game against Tranmere Rovers was postponed on Thursday lunchtime following an inspection of the Priestfield Stadium and the surrounding area by local referee Ian Cooper.

Again this surely is good common sense prevailing given the distance that the visitors were coming, as indeed was the decision this morning (Friday) to call off Dover Athletic’s 630 mile round trip to the Blackpool coast to face Fleetwood Town in the FA Carlsberg Trophy.

With Ebbsfleet United’s home game in the Blue Square Premier against Kettering Town officially being postponed this morning (ironically the fixture was only recently brought forward from Tuesday February 9th), along with Bromley’s trip to Weston Super Mare and Welling United’s home game with Weymouth in Blue Square South there really is some serious midweek travelling to be done once these games are re arranged.

And with the forecast of more snow to possibly hit Kent over the weekend it seems likely that we could well face at least another blank week next week as of course following the snow and any thaw, will come the waterlogged pitches, and so the Kent footballing fan may have to wait a while before we get to see a

live game again.

But as Monty Python tells us “Always look on the bright side of life” – if we think we’ve got it bad in 2010, just remember the “Big Freeze of 1963”.

In the days before under soil heating, everything (not just the football season) stopped for over TWO months, as Wikipedia explains!

During the final days of December 1962, a blizzard swept across England and Wales. Snow drifted to over 20 feet deep in places, blocking roads and railways. The snow stranded villagers and brought down powerlines. The near freezing temperatures meant that the snow cover lasted for over two months in some areas.

In January 1963 the country started to freeze solid with temperatures as low as −16C in places. Here in Kent at Herne Bay, the sea froze for 1 mile out from shore and BBC TV news expressed fear’s that the Strait of Dover would freeze across.

In February more snow came. It was also stormy with winds reaching gale force. A 36-hour blizzard caused heavy drifting snow in most parts of the country. Drifts reached 20 feet in some areas. Gale force winds howled with speeds topping 80 mph. Finally the thaw set in in early March. The 6th of March was the first morning of the year without any frost anywhere in Britain.

So we have been warned… the current conditions may be bad and depressing, but they’re really not that bad – yet!

All games in Kent have all been called off. The last one to go was Ramsgate's home game against Whyteleafe in Ryman League Division One South, which was officially postponed at 2:50pm.