Summer/Winter

Quote: RL13 "You're right. It was a disposable comment. Though I do wonder why from a pure sociological point of view, why football and its associated variants from their origin were played in winter to begin with? It's dark, depressing, "less warm" than in the summer months, so why? Why has it taken 100 years in our game, at least, to go this is not working.

From a personal perspective, rugby in winter gives us something to do. It gives us activity and focus through barren months. A distraction from schooling and work - something to look forward to.

The summer by contrast is full of activity in and of itself; the lure of holidays, days out, resting, tranquillity, a casual kick about, I wonder how many amateur will miss out on playing rugby because of trips away, going abroad, or just basic desire to enjoy life without any obligation to anything? You can't have a lopsided social and activity demands all crammed into one half of the year. We can't abolish winter. It exists - boo hoo.

To be honest, whether the coach can teach you basic skills is down to the quality of the coaches - rather than environment (it's not like its perpetually slashing it down, or sub zero). The underrated reason why kids drop out, or why their parents feel reluctant to bring them to a local club is by and large because of the game itself
I wouldn't argue with much of that - except the coaching aspect. As a coach right now and can tell you exactly how our winter seasons ALWAYS go: we meet up in late summer and have superb sessions twice a week in the daylight, often in glorious conditions. Everyone is enthusiastic and numbers are great. We can train for as long as we like and carry out any drill we like. The INSTANT the clocks change, all that goes to sh*t.

We're in a non-RL area (as are many clubs), and there are almost no floodlit grass facilities so we either train on a patch of grass using the ambient light from astroturf pitches where the light is barely sufficient, or we train on the astroturf pitches. Within 3-4 weeks that patch of grass is a bog; churned up and ankle deep in sticky mud. So we go on the astroturf - but you can't do physical drills or really throw yourself into some stuff for fear of hitting the concrete-hard ground. It's terrible. Numbers drop rapidly and the range of drills you can do is massively limited.

As for pitches being hard, I also made that argument but having played summer for 2 years and thinking back, I haven't played on a rock-hard pitch yet - and neither have any games been called off due to the weather, unlike winter. Since we formed we've missed on average SEVEN games a year due to the weather. It's demoralising and frustrating.

As for other pros for summer: again, as a non-RL area we struggle for players. We've a squad of 25-30 but increasing changes to peoples work patterns have meant loads more lads have to work weekends and we've seriously struggled at times. For summer I've got at least 4 Union lads, 3-4 footballers and a several Leaguies joining our squad - and I'm expecting more. We've secured excellent facilities for training and are now running kid's clubs.

At the end of the day, if someone wants to play winter League, they can. I doubt it's going to vanish. But for moving forward, recruiting new lads and improving conditions, it's the future. From a personal perspective, I prefer the mud, but that's just my age (and knees) talking.