history
The battle with snow and ice – like now with storm “Elli” – is an exciting part of the history of the Bundesliga. The winter break was not wanted for a long time.
Storm “Elli” is affecting the Bundesliga, which wants to resume play at the weekend. Ice and snow could cause games to be canceled, for example at the Match between FC St. Pauli and RB Leipzig on Sunday. This is reminiscent of times when it was much more common for games to be canceled – or for games to be played on snow-covered pitches.
The Sportschau archive contains wonderful pictures of sliding players and shivering spectators; the colored balls were important utensils in the equipment cupboards. For a long time, the league largely played through the turn of the year; the audience revenue from the winter months was too important. “Then we’d rather miss a game here in Mönchengladbach than take a three-month break,” said Helmut Grashoff, then manager of Borussia Mönchengladbach, in February 1969.
1986: The winter break and its consequences
But it wasn’t just isolated cases; cancellations kept disrupting the game plans. A low point was the 1978/79 season, when 46 games were canceled due to weather.
Nevertheless, it took another six years before the German Football Association (DFB) gave the Bundesliga a permanent winter break. In the 1986/87 season it lasted a full eleven weeks until February 21st. But the winter held its own and provided plenty of fresh snow on the pitch in the opening game of the second half of the season between Borussia Dortmund and Bayern Munich (2:2).
1987: Munich’s Roland Wohlfarth in a duel with Dortmund’s Michael Zorc and Günter Kutowski
The winter break brought with it some side effects: indoor tournaments provided a nice change, top-class professional teams competed against each other in the “Budenzauber”, the fans were enthusiastic.
Lawn heating and climate change
But those times are a thing of the past. Lawn heating became widespread in the 1990s and even became mandatory for all first and second division teams in 2007. In addition, climate change drove up average temperatures in winter, especially from the 1980s onwards.
This is why the German Football League (DFL) has been daring to resume play at the beginning of January for several years – a point in time when Germany’s core winter is just beginning.
In heavy snowfalls, lawn heating systems reach their limits, meaning that storm “Elli” has the potential to shake up the game plan. But it shouldn’t be as bad as it was in 1970. At that time, also at the beginning of January, an entire Bundesliga match day was canceled due to weather.