Football's fight to stay afloat

When the phone rings off the hook in Andy Charlesworth’s house, it is time to worry.

It is also time to act.

To the Tadcaster Albion chairman and his wife, it is a guarantee that heavy rain is on the way, bringing with it an existential threat to the club they love.

And the phone has been ringing more often in recent years.

The threat of climate change to football is often framed through the potential devastation to come if we do not heed the warnings placed in front of us.

But the game is already feeling its impact.

In the UK, tens of thousands of matches at all levels are either postponed or lost altogether because of extreme weather, with the risk of floods leaving the very future of some clubs hanging in the balance.

Chairmen, chief executives and club secretaries find themselves on the front line as they battle to protect their teams from the effects of our changing climate.

For the clubs involved, just like for so many people around the world who are already dealing with the wide-ranging and devastating consequences of our heating planet, it is a fight for survival.

League Two Carlisle United live under the constant threat of flooding to their Brunton Park ground, having suffered such a fate in 2005 and 2015.

The latter was caused by Storm Desmond - the most destructive storm to ever hit Cumbria and one that modelling showed was 59% more likely to occur because of climate change.

Sea-level rises linked to climate change pose a huge threat to football grounds across the UK, especially to those situated on coastlines or near major rivers.

For many clubs, such a prospect remains a hypothetical doomsday scenario. To some Football League sides, though, it is all too real.

Carlisle's players were in Welling on the weekend of the storm six years ago, winning 5-0 on the Sunday to book their place in FA Cup third round. They returned to Cumbria to find only the crossbars of their ground's two goals visible in eight feet of standing water, offices and changing rooms inaccessible and their cars submerged or swept away.

They would play a part in the clean-up operation that followed throughout the town.

Over the next few weeks, United were able to fulfil home fixtures thanks to assistance from Preston and Blackburn, but it began a costly emotional and financial nightmare for the club.

It is one they continue to endure to this day. It also acts as a prophetic warning to those complacent to the dangers of climate change.

"We lost everything at first-floor level," United chief executive Nigel Clibbens told BBC Sport. "We had two clubhouses and everything was gone in those.

"The repair work to put it properly right took from December 2015 to October 2016.

"I can remember we started the 2016-17 season and came to pre-season and all the first-floor dressing rooms had been partly rebuilt and repainted. But we came back and the paint started to peel as it hadn't dried properly. We had to start again and redo it as the stadium was still drying out eight months later.

"When we came to renew our insurance, we were almost uninsurable. The excess was huge on the only cover we did get and the cap had been reduced. We have an unfunded insurance gap now. The club is having to self-insure that and carry the risk."

So why not move to a new stadium in less danger? It seems the obvious solution, but as Clibbens explains, it is not a viable one.

"Before the flood in 2015, the club was looking to relocate," he says. "The normal model is to sell the existing land, but the value of our land is very uncertain.

"Anybody who knows Carlisle knows that our stadium would come under the banner of 'very traditional'. It is a 1950s-style stadium in desperate need of investment to bring the facilities up to modern standards and the expectations of fans.

"The flood risk around us and the impact on the value of the site, be it to help us secure investment or acquire value for relocation, has been all but destroyed by flood risk. That undermines our ability to develop the club and be resilient, coupled with an insurance risk hanging over us and the threat of the situation getting worse in generations to come.

"We can make small steps internally, but we can't fix it. The only way that happens is if the floods don't come or if we are somewhere else. And even our ability to be somewhere else is out of our control now as people are waiting to see if the flood defences work.

"Even though the work has gone in to the defences, our premiums are still going up. It does not help us to help ourselves. How do you redevelop and progress with that shadow across a flood bank?"

The Environment Agency has undertaken work to improve local flood defences in the past 18 months, and the Football Foundation provides limited funds to help should the worst happen, but Clibbens views these as plasters over a much graver wound.

Based on a scenario where the world continues to create high levels of carbon emissions, the Met Office predicts UK winters will be up to 30% wetter by 2070.

"What we have noticed, and it is anecdotal, is that our weather is changing. We notice that we get more and harder frosts. When the rain comes, it is more torrential. You add these things together and a pattern emerges.

"The nature of this is that it will affect not just those on coastlines. The ripple effects of climate change are everywhere.

"We don't know the full impact, but until then we need to adopt a cautionary stance and start fixing these things while we have the chance. The problems are already with us and they are only going to get worse.

"If the warnings are anywhere near to being correct then we have some huge problems heading our way. Can we afford not to deal with them and just hope the evidence is wrong? That is not the way to go.

"It needs to be a cultural thing. We all need to play a part. We all have an obligation to do what we can. It is not theoretical, it is real and we know that better than anyone here.

"We talk about football having a voice and an ability to make a mark beyond people kicking a ball around a pitch. I think it needs to use its power and influence to bring that to the fore. It is not just talking about it, it is making actual changes.

"We are community clubs and we need to live up to that obligation."

The situation is even more perilous for some clubs further down the English football ladder.

Like Carlisle, Northern Premier East side Tadcaster Albion, based in north Yorkshire, suffered heavy flooding in 2015 that covered their pitch and the bar in their already raised clubhouse.

Last year, a series of floods almost ended the club's existence.

"A year last February, that was potentially that," club chairman Andy Charlesworth reflects. "We had run out of money and were flooded five times.

"We set up a Just Giving page and luckily people were very generous, so we managed to get the means to carry on. We had people donating skips so we could clear the rubbish away.

"Volunteers came to help clean up. We even had a woman come from Hull, who had never been to Tadcaster before.

"But as far as the club going out of existence, that was really, really close."

Situated next to the River Wharfe, Albion's existence is one of constant vigilance towards the weather. But, as Charlesworth admits, should the dire predictions about climate change come to pass, they may be powerless to protect the club.

"My wife says she always knows when it is raining as the phone is constantly going off making sure we have the flood doors on," he says.

"And then we have people monitoring the river levels. Once the flood doors are on we just watch and wait to see how far it comes and how long it stays.

"Normally, the floods stay on the pitch for four or five days, so not too long. But if it comes more frequently and for longer and the grass is underneath water for a week or so it starts to die. And, like most non-league football clubs, our pitch is our main asset."

Last month, a survey conducted by the Climate Coalition estimated that extreme weather linked to climate change results in the cancellation or postponement of about 62,500 amateur matches in the UK each year.

This follows a 2018 study showing that on average grassroots clubs lose five weeks every season to bad weather - with more than a third losing between two and three months.

It lays bare the threat posed to an activity that serves a vital social, fitness and wellbeing function for millions and is the foundation for the professional game.

Calverley United, an amateur club based in a village between Leeds and Bradford, have two senior teams that play in the Yorkshire Amateur League.

They also have an impressive volunteer-run junior set-up, with 30 teams, catering for about 425 children (including 125-130 girls) aged 5-17. This year, they were named West Riding FA's club of the year at the grassroots football awards.

But the good work being done by the club is increasingly being undermined by the ever-worsening winter weather.

"We seem to lose more games each year," club secretary Jon Zoltie says. "Speaking with other coaches, I don't think games were cancelled as much previously.

"The past three years have been worse, to the extent that we have had reimbursements from the council for the pitch rental because we lose maybe 30-40% of games to being called off.

"And it is weeks and months. It seems to be that once it hits, that is it. Once it is sodden, it doesn't dry out. It either freezes or it just stays wet."

Calverley's senior sides are able to play on a higher-quality and well-maintained surface in the village's nearby park, for which they were able to secure a recent grant.

The juniors, though, have to split their games and training over multiple nearby hired locations, the upkeep of which is largely reliant on a local council that can only do so much for pitches which are simply not robust enough to stand up to heavy rain or frost.

"Some of them are terrible - a quagmire basically," Zoltie continues. "As soon as the weather hits it is gone and we get numerous games cancelled.

"The knock-on when you have so many teams to play after each other on one pitch is that it may get to the point where one is playable, but as soon as you play a game on it, that is it done for two weeks because you've churned it and made it worse."

The consequence of losing so many games is potentially catastrophic for the grassroots game.

The Climate Coalition survey found that among amateur players, nearly three-quarters (72%) say they are put off playing football in extreme weather, with 80% of this group saying they've already cut back on their playing time.

This adds to Sport England figures showing those aged over 16 playing football fell from 2.3 million in 2016 to under 1.9 million in 2020.

This is an issue Calverley are experiencing first hand.

"The knock-on potential of it all is that you don't have kids who play football for a weekend, so they don't get the exercise, or worse they sit at home playing video games," says Zoltie.

"It is bad for the kids and for the coaches as you put so much time and effort into it and then the game is called off. You then also have parents and there is a social aspect for parents and kids with their friends.

"If you end up with cancelled games, the kids end up thinking, 'is there something better I can be doing indoors?' My daughter does dancing as well as football and dancing won't get cancelled because of the weather.

"It isn't the kind of thing that may really register so much in the next year or two. It is longer term and over time that the incremental effect shows.

"What does it ultimately mean for the Premier League if talented kids coming through aren't playing football? They will not reach the heights they potentially could have done.

"The more they train, the more they play, the better they get, especially at that young age. If it is just sporadic football and a kickabout now and again it is going to have a big impact."

Calverley are waiting on the planned council development to one of their regular sites, that will include more weather-resistant artificial pitches, but progress has been delayed because of Covid.

But improving facilities is only a short-term solution to what threatens to become an unfixable problem.

It is not all doom and gloom, though. There is a genuine push for meaningful change within football, from the bottom up.

Birmingham County Football Association is at the forefront, aiming to highlight and educate about the role football can play in addressing climate change, promoting positive action from its members and beyond.

Earlier this year it launched "Save Today, Play Tomorrow" - a pioneering programme designed to create and support lower-carbon football in the West Midlands in four key areas: health and wellbeing, positive education, climate action and reconnecting football with nature.

The organisation's business insights manager Richard Lindsay is driving the initial four-year plan, having been prompted to act by a visit to a pitch and seeing first hand the amount of plastic waste left there after a game.

"Over the past nine months it has escalated and there has been a bit of a snowball in the last couple," says Lindsay. "For us, it is about what we can influence, what we can change, how we can educate those in grassroots football to make even the smallest changes that then make a big difference when you roll things up.

"It sits at the heart of our strategy. Over the next four years it is about how we can support a greener game and reward clubs at a grassroots level to take on the challenge of becoming greener.

"Some of it is very simple changes that clubs can make and their members can drive, such as adopting a plastic-free environment on matchdays.

"This year, we introduced a sustainability pledge, which is an additional free product that clubs can sign up for and is their high-level commitment to say they will start looking at six key areas around transport, waste, energy, food, community engagement and water.

"We also launched the first green innovation fund, where we will support some of the clubs financially with £25,000 of our money for the changes they want to make.

"Not every club is fortunate enough to have their own clubhouse and facilities and they feel detached from some of these programmes or services. We try to be inclusive, so we are funding everything from plastic-free reusable bottles right the way through to solar panels and electric vehicle charging points for those fortunate enough to have their own premises."

The strategy is not without difficulties.

"I don't think it always registers with people that the number of games lost as a result of extreme weather is part of what is happening to the planet," says Lindsay. "People say 'build more artificial pitches and more games will get played' but that is not tackling the problem, that is not finding an alternative solution that is feasible.

"Some people say we should move the season and play in warmer months but that creates another problem. If we get extreme heat, which we are now starting to see, then you go to the other extreme as pitches are dangerous because they are too hard and then you have the physical factors around heat exhaustion and dehydration.

"I think the solution is to tackle the bigger problem and look at ways we can make football greener.

"But that is where the level of understanding and education needs to come in. We are going to work hard over the next few months to upskill the work force within grassroots football so they can come on board with understanding some of the challenges around climate change and what the impact really is.

"Some of them are tangible. With pitches, you can see the number that are being lost each season because of extreme weather conditions, storms that decimate clubhouses and changing facilities and things like that. But some of the things we're looking at are not visible.

"One we are looking at is poor air quality and the impacts of this on participants. What we have found is that we're pushing people to play but they are in areas where the air quality is quite dangerous.

"We have already done some high-level research with West Midlands Air but we are going to do more at a localised level, looking at air quality and the impact on performance and health. And that links back to how people transport themselves to football. Are they adding to the problem? Can they reduce their reliance on a car?

"It is a real challenge for us, particularly as an organisation for whom it is not our primary role. It is a learning curve for us as much as our clubs."

Thankfully, the BCFA is not alone. It has partnerships with a number of like-minded companies and organisations, including Veolia Waste Management, Birmingham Energy Initiative, the British Association for Sustainable Sport (Basis), Pledgeball and Liftshare, with whom it recently launched the first car-sharing scheme in grassroots football.

Another is with Planet Super League, which has recently been running the Cup26 competition - a nationwide tournament for fans, families and schools where winning is determined by undertaking green initiatives.

It has also received help from the Football Association's sustainability team. The ambition now is to take what it has learned and help others to implement their own green strategy.

"There is an ambition from the Football Association, and certainly from ourselves, that we want to create a blueprint that other county FAs can adopt," added Lindsay.

"A one-size-fits-all approach doesn't really work at county FA level as some are bigger than others, have greater reach or greater capacity for funding and resources, etc.

"But if we can provide some of the education and use some national partners for support like BASIS that will help educate participants and staff within the FAs, we will be on the right track.

"It is about breaking down barriers to get people talking about this a little bit more. We have done quite a lot of the work and hopefully others can largely replicate what we have done or what we have started to do. Hopefully it will sit as a standard or benchmark for grassroots football."

Birmingham County FA is one of 273 organisations to have signed up to the United Nations' Sports for Climate Action Framework. This calls on sporting organisations to play their part in combating climate change, with an emphasis on ensuring signatories take meaningful action rather than just pledging to make positive steps.

A number of English clubs, including Liverpool, Southampton and Tottenham, are also committed to the Framework, as are the Football Association and the BBC.

Spurs and Chelsea recently attempted to play the world's first carbon neutral game, for which fans were urged to travel to the stadium via bicycle or public transport and eat only vegan food, amongst other measures.

League Two Forest Green Rovers have long been at the forefront of the drive for a greener, more sustainable approach in the game, from their use of renewable power, an entirely vegan food menu and much, much more.

In partnership with GreenCode, an environmental consultancy run by Rovers owner Dale Vince, the EFL launched a 72-club sustainability initiative called Green Clubs earlier this month.

These are just a few examples of the work being done to highlight and combat climate change within UK football.

But recent research by BBC Sport found the expansion of Uefa's European club competitions has led to a vast increase in the amount of travel by teams and fans, much of it by air.

The 2018 World Cup in Russia is believed to have created at least 2.1 millions tonnes of carbon dioxide, with the 2022 tournament in Qatar expected to produce up to 3.6 million tonnes - more than some nations produce in a year.

Football's governing body Fifa has previously outlined a desire for next year's event to be carbon neutral. Along with European counterpart Uefa, it has also signed up to the UN Sports for Climate Action Framework. On Wednesday, the organisation agreed to new climate change targets that include reaching net zero by 2040 and a 50% reduction in greenhouse gases by 2030.

"When we started it was all seen as something that is happening somewhere else," says Lindsay. "It is in the deserts in Africa and the North Pole with ice caps melting. It is too far removed from daily life.

"There has been lot going on recently with Covid and in people's lives generally, so climate change may have been pushed to the back of minds.

"The connection to sport sometimes gets missed but with COP26 (this month's UN Climate Change Conference in Glasgow) putting climate action front and centre this can only help support our ambitious goal.

"If we are going to look at an approach to tackle this we need to connect people's thinking to sport - the number of games lost through inclement weather, air pollution and quality around matches, travel and transport issues, water, plastic waste.

"If you look at the number of people who play the game at grassroots level and you look at the growth in the younger age groups, it is those younger groups that are more educated in these issues we face. They have a greater understanding and education to try to help the game move forward.

"I think it is only a matter of time before we start seeing younger individuals saying they really want to play football, but this isn't how it should be done or the environment we want it to be played in.

"It will take just one or two grassroots clubs to really push the agenda. They then, like Forest Green, become the advocates to show what can be achieved. We are starting to see it now.

"I am optimistic that our programme will be successful and sport will adopt similar measures. Because of the reach of football, the future is bright."

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