Footy game abandoned due to COLD: Hypothermia threat sees officials take drastic action in rare scenes
- Hypothermia risk caused football match to be cancelled
- The teams did not leave the sheds after the break
- A polar ice explosion hit rural Victoria
Footballers and referees did not leave their huts in the second half of the match as some players and officials suffered from hypothermia due to the wet and cold conditions.
Conditions in Ballarat and Victoria’s Central Highlands are chilly in the depths of winter, but were even chillier on Saturday.
The start in Newlyn, 20km from Ballarat, was on Saturday at 2.30pm.
But barely an hour later, some players and referees were already showing early symptoms of hypothermia and the Newlyn-Springbank match was rightly ended early.
Central Highlands Football League chairman Doug Hobson said he had contacted both clubs on Sunday and that no-one had been injured.
The temperature in Ballarat was around eight degrees on Saturday afternoon, but with winds reaching 40km/h it felt around or below freezing.
As the pies were being put in the warming cabinet and the boots laced up, the rain was pouring down. At one point, Mr Dobson saw that the weather forecast indicated a wind chill of -3.4°.
About 15mm of rain fell in the region.
Conditions were wet in Powelltown during Saturday’s football match, forcing the match to be abandoned
Arctic ice burst hits rural Victoria, raising risk of hypothermia
“Yesterday we had another icy polar storm,” Hobson told NewsWire.
‘We have days like that. It was just relentless.’
When the Newlyn and Springbank players went into half time, Newlyn led 2.11 (23) to Springbank 1.9 (9).
“A few players felt a bit cold… It was a very sensible decision to cancel the match,” said the league president.
“It was called off before there was any evidence of adverse effects in people with pre-existing conditions that cannot be helped.”
Newlyn Senior coach Jarrett Giampaolo said the weather made the match “one of the worst matches I’ve ever been in”.
“It was a shocking day – the oval was completely burnt and there wasn’t a blade of grass to be seen,” Giampaolo told the Herald Sun.
The rules of the competition state that if the match is abandoned, the half-time score will stand, with Newlyn then receiving four championship points.