#GAMEOFF trends on Twitter as heavy rainfall cancels matches across the country

At the start of 2022 we wrote about the impact of Storm Eunice, Storm Dudley and Storm Franklin on British football, combining in one week to dramatic effect.

Then this summer we saw heat waves cause non-league grounds to dry out, pre season matches to be cancelled and Premier League water breaks introduced. The extreme weather arguably even put the Lionesses EURO win at risk with training session times being moved and players encouraged to spend more time indoors.

Fast forward to November 2022, and many folks have been commenting on the unseasonably warm weather. It’s not normal to go out in just a t-shirt at this time of year.

On the weekend of 5th and 6th November extreme weather struck British football yet again. So many matches were cancelled this past weekend that #GameOff was trending on Twitter. To give you an idea of the scale, here is just an initial overview of the senior fixtures which were cancelled due to waterlogged pitches:

Woking FC v Oxford United (Men’s FA Cup)

Tottenham v Everton (Women’s Super League)

Lewes FC v Bristol City (Women’s Championship)

Crystal Palace v Sheffield United (Women’s Championship)

Chorely v Hull City (Women’s National League)

Ashford Town v Norwich City (Women’s National League)

Maidenhead United v AFC Bournemouth (Women’s National League)

Swindon Town v Selsey (Women’s National League)

When you include Non-League football, the list of cancelled fixtures this past weekend becomes huge. The number of players, officials, club staff and fans whose plans have been disrupted this weekend must be enormous.

This is the third example of extreme weather events cancelling football this year, and because climate change will only make these events more common, the disruption to British football is certain to continue.

Non League clubs and Women’s teams are the worst affected by climate change. This is because they often don’t have funding to develop infrastructure to protect their pitches from extreme weather events, or to make environmentally sustainable changes to their operations.

While we can hope and argue for more action from the Government and fossil fuel companies to combat the climate crisis on a global scale, extreme weather is already having a negative impact on our clubs and communities.

There are some measures available to help clubs play on through the extreme weather events we are seeing more and more often in the UK, but many of them are out of reach from Non League clubs and Women’s teams who are working with tiny budgets compared to the teams at the top of the pyramid.

More financial support is needed for Non League clubs and Women’s teams if they are to plot a sustainable future, and mitigate the increasing effects of the climate crisis.

This will become an even greater imperative as the Met Office prepare for another round of extreme weather to strike the UK in February 2023.