1963: When football in Britain froze for nearly 10 weeks

• Rooney9

  11 Jan 10, 22:35

  

  Peter Downsbrough, the Halifax goalkeeper, makes a flying save in the Third Division match at Brighton in February 1963. Halifax won 1-0. Photograph: PA/PA Archive

   

  The current big freeze has far to go before it equals the paralysis that disrupted the season of 1963. When Middlesbrough beat Blackburn 3-1 in a replay at Ayresome Park on 11 March, this brought to an end the most chaotic third round in the then 91-year history of the FA Cup. The round had begun on 5 January and lasted 66 days through frost, snow, ice, power cuts, thaw, rain and mud. The third round was spread over 22 different playing days and there were 261 postponements. Sixteen of the 32 ties were called off 10 or more times.

  Topping the list was Birmingham v Bury, which stretched through 14 postponements plus one abandonment and a replay, while Lincoln v Coventry was postponed 15 times. The record was set in Scotland, where the Stranraer v Airdrie cup tie was postponed 33 times, while in Yorkshire Barnsley played only two matches between 22 December and 12 March. It was Britain's coldest winter since 1740 and also caused mass postponements in both rugby codes and the loss of 61 days of National Hunt racing.

  The FA Cup third round of 1963 gave birth to the Pools Panel which, on four successive Saturdays under different chairmen – Lord Brabazon, Sir Alan Herbert, Group Captain Douglas Bader, and Sir Gerald Nabarro (the Tory MP) – gave results for the postponed games, of which there were more than 30 on 26 January. On the resident panel were the former England internationals Ted Drake, Tom Finney and Tommy Lawton; from Scotland, George Young; and the Fifa referee Arthur Ellis. Lord Brabazon, on the opening day of the panel, was of the opinion that "forecasting is a farce" and there was a shortage of draws from the panel in relation to a normal programme.

  The disruptions caused, inevitably, many distortions, but one of the unlikeliest was Fulham's. George Cohen, later to be England's winning World Cup right-back, recalls: "When the freeze struck we were in danger of relegation. Luckily we were able to go and train at the ground of Leatherhead FC, near to where I lived at Chessington. When the thaw arrived, we went 13 weeks without defeat and moved to safety."

  It was rather the reverse for Brighton, where a local builder on the club board managed to unfreeze the pitch with his tarmac-laying equipment. However, this destroyed the pitch, and Brighton were still relegated.

  The FA agreed that, in emergency, clubs might play third- and fourth-round Cup ties on neutral grounds where available. Yet Billy Lane, the manager of non-Lleague Gravesend, refused to shift the home tie with lofty Sunderland, and the Kent team held them to a draw, narrowly losing the replay. The Scottish FA, meanwhile, vainly discussed the possibility of summer football.

  Coventry City, led by the imaginative Jimmy Hill, went to play friendly matches in Ireland, including against Manchester United in Dublin, a 2-2 draw in front of a 20,000 crowd. Halifax turned their pitch at The Shay into a public ice rink and charged admission. Chelsea, with Tommy Docherty as manager, flew to Malta.

  If there was disruption on the field, there was confusion elsewhere. The League management committee proposed to extend future seasons to the end of May, and devised a relegation system that defied mathematical analysis but was ultimately abandoned. The government, pressed by the Wolfenden Committee on Sport to create a Sports Development Council with an annual budget of £5m, ignored the proposal and instead appointed as minister of sport Lord Hailsham (Quintin Hogg), who spent most of his time shooting or fishing. His assistant was Sir Patrick Renison, who may have performed splendid service as governor of British Honduras, British Guiana and Kenya, but knew next to nothing of sport, admitting: "I'll be starting from scratch." Nothing new there.

  I remember well the opening paragraph of a match I reported at Charlton during the worst of the crisis, a goalless draw at home to Bury. I wrote in the Telegraph: "Take one frying pan (or football pitch), melt a quantity of ice, stir in enough earth, sand and peat to form a liquid paste. Add 22 players, flavour with a referee, simmer for 90 minutes until players are uniformly brown and unrecognisable. Serve chilled to half‑frozen spectators who, after weeks of neglect, have such an appetite for the game that they are unlikely to summon the Maître d' (manager)."

  By the time the league was back to normal in March, it was clear that the race for the title rested between Spurs, Leicester and Everton. After Everton lost 2-1 away to Sheffield United on 30 March, it looked good for Spurs, even though Everton had two games in hand. Leicester stood between the two rivals, but success in reaching the FA Cup final limited their League focus. An epic clash between Everton and Spurs on 20 April opened the way for the title to return to Goodison after a lapse of 24 years. A crowd of 67,650 saw Everton win by the only goal from mercurial Alex Young. Though they dropped a home point to Arsenal, Everton finished with four victories, away to West Ham and West Brom, home to Bolton and Fulham. Their triumph owed much to big-name signings: Tony Kay at left-half from Sheffield Wednesday, Alex Scott from Rangers on the right wing, and Gordon West in goal from Blackpool.

  The FA Cup final was delayed until 25 May, three weeks later than the 1962 final. Manchester United, having only narrowly escaped relegation, defeated Leicester. Throughout the season United's rhythm had been predominantly absent, whereas Leicester at one stage were in line for the Double. They had no stars to match Matt Busby's glittering array, but under the shrewd guidance of their manager, Matt Gillies, were a sound unit. However, at Wembley, their midfield trio of Cross, McLintock and Gibson were so busy attempting to stem the flow of United's attack that Leicester seldom provided any thrust up front.

  Even that was not the end. The League Cup final, then played over two legs, and featuring Birmingham and Aston Villa, was not completed until the Monday after the FA Cup final – two days before the Derby.

  David Miller has been covering sport in Britain's national newspapers for more than 50 years