In October 2018 I had an entry on this blog called ‘Not So Summer Soccer’ . It concerned the League of Ireland adoption of a February-October schedule.
I’m re-posting the chart considering the events of last Saturday night which saw Shamrock Rovers defender Cole Omorehiomwan hospitalised due to the weather conditions – he showed signs of frost bite . Stom Jorge was raging. Numerous Galway United player’s also suffered from hypothermia and some sat out training on Monday. Shamrock Rovers have confirmed their players have now recovered.
The chart shows the (minimum) recorded temperature for each match from the nearest weather station for the 2018 season. The average temperature for a League of Ireland match that season was 9.66°C (median, 9°C).We see a similar pattern for the 2019 season. For 2019, this average temperature fell to 7.60°C (median, 8.1°C).
As the chart shows, we can have low and, at times, freezing temperatures in February. The temperature picks up in March and ‘summer soccer’ starts to take hold from probably from April onwards. Near the end of the season we start to return to colder conditions, but not as cold as those seen at the start of the season. There's an argument that we play through two winters and a summer.
Temperature is usually considered a factor that can change opportunity costs for fans to attend – cold, wet and windy nights might make sitting in front of the TV a more appealing option. Given what happened in Tallaght last week, the Irish weather might be turning the players off too!