I will huff and I will puff and I will blow your stadium away

Roman Stadium "almost" still going after a few hundred years and I bet a few hundred K of winds!

So hurricane bawbag and his big dangly bro have been slapping Scotland hard with a wee bit off wind! Between this a very short lived Raith Rovers cup run, the new from the homeland has been a bit dismal. Must be post Christmas blues! 

Oh well! Chin up folks, we have a few weeks of "good" football left and everyone needs to get behind their teams!

enjoy this serving of Paella and Bovril. 

PLEASE SUPPORT YOUR LOCAL TEAM AND IT'S MATCH DAY PROGRAMME!

Paella and Bovril

With 2012 well and truly here, Christmas a distance memory and those annual New Years resolutions back to being resolved next year, our thoughts turn to the next big thing, summer.  Where to go on holiday, what will the weather be like, how much rain will London receive during the Olympics and the biggest question of all, how to fill the close season between May and August?  I would say the summer shut down but the season starts on the 6^th of August, and correct me if I am a wrong but is the start of August not still the summer! Maybe we are slowly changing to a “summer” football nation. Maybe we should BE a summer footballing nation.

The festive period was a traditional time for football, Boxing Day matches, New-Year’s-Day derbys and more than a few Santa hats. But is it that now? Someone even tweeted that there was no football on Boxing Day in Scotland, huh, pretty sure there was a full fixture board from the league, Ok the “big boys” were not playing, but there was football on! Not that you could find it, no radio coverage, no highlights, not really even a mention of it anywhere.  And on the night that the top league was playing of course the media were out in force, and so was the wind! Games awaiting clearance to play and commentators tying themselves to the gantries was the news of the night. Even though the Old Firm were playing the weather seemed to be the winner on the night. But it was just a bit of wind, or so was the thought of some in the media. To be fair it is Scotland and we can and regularly have 4 seasons in one day with every flavour of rain thrown in for good measure, so you would think we would be able to cope with a wee bit of 80 MPH winds.

However should we the fans, the players, managers, ground staff, programme sellers have to cope with it, is it time for that winter shutdown to come back?

But when is winter, End of November, December, start of March? Who knows, what we do know is that our game suffers cause of the weather, and it is not just the pros who are unsure of they will play regularly over winter. The weather gets every level of football, local playing fields (if they still exist) are usually beyond un-playable, long waiting list on expensive in-door facilities, schools trying to teach kids who are more frozen footed than left footed. Our game needs help and the weather is not giving us that!  Now I am under no illusions Scottish summers are no tropical paradise but they are a teeny bit better than our winters, and it is a lot easier to run after a ball in a pair of shorts than in a puffer ski jacket!

Let’s face it our Scottish weather sucks. I am pretty sure it has not changed in the past 5 years, or has it? Has the time come for Scottish football to swap summer bikini holidays for a winter break slipping down some ski slopes?