LISTENING to the list of abandoned matches last weekend, The Kicker was suddenly struck by a revolutionary thought which could transform not just Scottish football, but the finances of the NHS and local government, indeed Scottish society as a whole.
We really now need to play football in the summer and take a winter break from the beginning of December to the end of February. That goes for rugby as well.
The reason why is simple and can be seen in every A&E department every weekend that the weather is bad. If you go to such a department on, say, a Saturday afternoon and evening you will find injured footballers and rugby players. Lots of them.
They have every right to be there because presumably they and their families all pay income tax. During the winter, however, sporty types are far outnumbered by those who are suffering from injuries caused by falls and illnesses linked to the climate that unfortunately we live in.
Visit the same departments at weekends in the summer when there is no football and rugby and you will find far fewer people with sports injuries, and indeed far fewer people generally because the weather is usually kinder and conditions for health are normally considerably much better than winter.
It is a no-brainer to me that with the NHS really struggling to cope in the winter, and with local councils unable to fix waterlogged and frozen pitches, not to mention pavements and roads, they could well do without injured sports people who, it must be admitted, are there because they are told to play their sport in conditions which increase the risk of injury.
Switching to play summer football and rugby would lead to the number of people in A&E departments, not to mention orthopaedic wards and operating theatres, being considerably reduced.
The Kicker can provide one piece of evidence of the efficacy of this move from his personal knowledge of last weekend when ice and snow turned many roads in Scotland into skating rinks.
A friend fell on an ungritted pavement and broke his ankle. He was told he might need an operation, and if he did, he would have to wait because there were 40 people ahead of him in the queue – you can bet the 40 included people injured while playing football or rugby.
At a time when the NHS and local government need all their resources to care for the elderly and the sick, not to mention gritting roads and pavements, it is utter madness that the governing bodies insist on playing football and rugby during the winter when we all know that the quality of both sports would be improved by playing in the summer. Those who say that summer holidays would reduce crowd sizes have got it wrong – the numbers would be increased by those who currently won’t go and sit in a stadium where the only warm thing is a cup of Bovril.
As a matter of social responsibility the SFA and SRU should run their seasons from March to November. At least let’s get some research done.
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