In January 2010, we saw the cancellation of many Football League and even Premiership games with temperatures in the UK dropping to extreme freezing conditions of -15 to -20 degrees in places overnight. Pitches were completely frozen and totally unplayable. Whilst we were all aware that this seemed a severe batch of extreme weather, the reality was that frost played and still does play an intrinsic part in sporting events being called off. The Football League had already introduced a ruling that all League clubs MUST have full pitch sized frost covers by the start of of the 2010/11 season.
Whilst in 2006, the 500 Club had already purchased a set of frost covers (see the article here) for the pitch some time ago to help ensure that the FA cup 3rd round tie against Newcastle took place, these were not full pitch sized covers and were only enough to cover the end that suffered the most from the frost (the Carlsberg Stand end).
As such, the “Raise the Ground” 500 Club decided that they would like to be in the position to considerably assist with or even fully purchase the frost covers for Cheltenham Town Football Club.
Before the start of the season, Steve Smith managed to contact a company that could provide the club with such Frost Sheets and also he was able to negotiate a substantial discount with this company – we would therefore be grateful if you would take a few moments to visit the site advertised at the bottom of the article as it was them that enabled us to purchase the Frost Sheets at a discount.
Whilst the 500 club still put a large amount of money to this (£10,000) the frost sheets are now at the club ready for use this year when needed and hopefully this will result in fewer postponements, we will wait and see. A few pictures of the Frost Sheets and how they are deployed – they are quite heavy apparently.