FLANAGAN'S FILES

Across our area of the country, we have experienced some cold weather, colder than it has been for a while with freezing conditions calling off even games on artificial pitches.

In 1963, the United Kingdom experienced one of the coldest winters on record. During the months of December, January and February, temperatures plummeted across the nation which made it the coldest winter since 1740.

This particular winter was certainly more than just bad weather, it was one of the five most spectacularly bad winters in the 100 years that preceded 1963. Britain was hit with a series of nasty cold isolated chunks.

The ‘Big Freeze’ began on the 22nd of December 1962; forecasts then predicted that it would be a white Christmas for many.

Boxing Day was greeted with snow nationwide, which made for a picturesque and enjoyable festive period. Everything still ran as normal and everyone expected this to be a cold snap that would soon pass.

Children flooded to the parks to toboggan down hills and partake in snowball fights, enjoying what appeared to be the perfect Christmas. The fun was available for everyone, but little did the people who built their snowmen on Boxing Day realise that their frozen friends would still be standing in February.

As the Christmas snow still lay thick on the ground, another greater blizzard hit the nation. It was the worst blizzard of fifteen years.

Snow drifts lay as high as 20 feet leading to nationwide announcements telling people not to leave their houses, not even for essential travel. The measures in place were more stringent than the COVID-19 measures of March and April 2020 in Britain.

Many small towns and villages were completely closed off with no access to roads. At the end of the storm, 200 roads were cut off and 95,000 miles of tarmac was snow bound. The end of 1962 saw abandoned cars and thick snowfall as the norm for New Years Eve, but now 11 people had died as a result of the weather.

Southern England it was the worst avalanche of snow in living memory. Gusts up to 90mph hit the South of England and it was so bitterly cold that the sea froze on the Essex coast. Temperatures dropped to -8°C and five people were killed due to the weather.

The bins weren’t collected for three weeks causing huge backlogs nationwide and the milkmen couldn’t deliver in the conditions. Nowadays trains etc are cancelled due to a few leaves on the line in 1963, snowploughs had to dig out the bus routes. It was absolute chaos for the roads, train and air travel, farms, small villages, food, medical supplies and the whole of the UK was affected in some way.

Therefore, sport was of course no different and the impact that this had on English football was enormous.

Only five fixtures were completed in the First Division on Boxing Day and from that day on, little of the fixture list was completed that winter.

The Football League fixture list and the FA Cup were left in a chaotic mess. Over 500 games in all were cancelled and the season was extended to the 21st of May, twenty days later than the end of the previous First Division season. Halifax turned their pitch at The Shay into a public ice rink and charged admission.

All manner of ideas and devices were tried to beat the freeze ...

Flame-throwers at Blackpool’s Bloomfield Road, a hot-air tent at Leicester’s Filbert Street, a Danish snow-shifting tractor at Birmingham City’s St Andrews, and 80 tons of sand at Wrexham’s Racecourse Ground — but the clubs were fighting a losing battle.

Brighton used tarmac laying equipment to attempt to relieve the conditions on their Goldstone Ground pitch, this left their playing surface all but destroyed and they were ultimately relegated that year. One of the worst hit days of football fixtures was the Third Round of the FA Cup on the 5th of January. It was the worst day in the 92-year history of the FA Cup as only 3 of the 32 scheduled games went ahead. Although only three games were played, there were plenty of incidents. In fact, the third round of 1962-63 is the longest-lasting round in the history of the FA Cup.

It began on the 5th of January, was subjected to a huge 261 postponements, and was not completed until March. Some FA Cup games had to be moved to neutral grounds in the hope of easing the monumental fixture congestion. Fourteen ties were postponed ten or more times: Lincoln City vs. Coventry City was postponed a record 15 times, and when Birmingham City and Bury eventually managed to play a full 90 minutes they drew 3-3, which necessitated a replay!

After 17 attempts, Bury eventually triumphed 2-0. The replayed Blackburn vs. Middlesbrough tie was the final third-round game to be completed but was not done so until the 11th of March.

When the thaw arrived, we went 13 weeks without football imagine how groundhoppers would feel today if that happened. Due to the sheer number of postponements, the First Division campaign was finally finished on the 21st of May, although obviously it's normal now for the premiership to also go on through may.

To be honest just doing this article & researching the conditions has made me feel warmer lol.

Jimmy Flanagan