BASINGSTOKE has been ranked the best place in the country to play winter football.
With one indoor or 3G pitch per 3,942 players, Basingstoke came top for winter preparedness at a time when extreme weather conditions are gripping the country.
The FA is currently reporting 150,000 postponements each year due to pitch conditions.
The data on indoor and 3G sports facilities in England’s 93 largest towns and cities has been collected by sports equipment retailer Net World Sports.
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Researchers combined these numbers with the respective area’s average winter weather to create a winter preparedness score.
While Basingstoke, with one of the country's lowest average rainfall score, came top, Southampton is ranked 82nd out of 93 as it only had one pitch per 10,769 people.
Hampshire came 21st out of the 41 counties in the study, meaning there is work to be done to its winter football facilities.
Overall, the north of England has better infrastructure for dealing with extreme weather conditions, with seven of the top 10 best prepared all being in the north.
On the flip side, five of the bottom 10 towns are in the south with Raleigh in Essex coming in last place having only one indoor or 3G pitch per 24,702 people.
Kent, Cheshire, and Lancashire came in as the best-prepared counties overall, while Derbyshire, Cumbria, and Norfolk came in as the least equipped to deal with poor weather.
Most Prepared Towns and Cities:
Least Prepared Towns and Cities:
Data source: networldsports.co.uk/
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