A&H

Lightening

T

Trip

RefChat Addict
Level 5 Referee
A 9-year-old was killed last year during a training session having been struck by lightening. I can see a fair bit of reasonably consistent advice from elsewhere in the world regarding what to do if there's lightening during football: if there's less then 30 seconds between the lightening and the thunder go inside.

But nothing from the FA. If you're doing a kids match and a storm breaks out what would you do? Let's assume there's a tall metal perimeter fence on one side of he pitch and tall trees on the other.
 
The Referee Store
The same with any game, if the lightning is very close you should suspend the game until it has passed. Certainly if it is less than 10 to 15 seconds between the flash and thunder as that means it is 2 to 3 miles away.
 
The typical guidance in the US is to suspend for any seen lightning or heard thunder (except in places that have tracking tech). And to wait 30 minutes after the last observation before restarting.

(There might be geographic storm differences that affect the difference—especially in some of the middle of the US, lightning can jump pretty large distances very quickly.)
 
In Australia, if there are less than 30 seconds between lightning and clap then you head in for thirty minutes, restarting with every observed similar instance.

Cricket introduced the policy first because there were not insignificant numbers of players being killed in low grade matches around the country.
 
Yes, I've seen that there is quite clear guidance in the US, and also Australia. The guidance is the same in both cases.

In England there doesn't seem to be anything official.
 
I can't remember where I saw it, but thought I'd seen guidance of lightening meaning a game should be abandoned, especially at a level where changing rooms may not be available. Probably totally wrong, just thought I'd read it somewhere
 
Abandonment is probably the key term here, but what I have seen more often (at least at mini / youth level) is a 'pause' in the game / tournament (I guess to allow the worst of the storm to 'go over', with a hope of restarting - sometimes just a few minutes later).
Typically what then happens (especially if it is raining at the time) is that all of the children come off the pitch and their parents then take them to go and stand under the shelter of nearby trees, thus increasing their risk of injury. :rolleyes:
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top