Aberdeen’s Joe Lewis has given an insight into the challenge of being a goalkeeper in a harsh Scottish winter.
The country was battered by Storm Arwen last weekend and in midweek the Dons had to battle through snowy, windy conditions on their way to winning 2-0 at home to Livingston.
Lewis explained that shot-stoppers must improvise to ensure they are not affected by adverse conditions.
He is hoping for a reprieve from the elements on Saturday when St Mirren visit Pittodrie, a stadium next to the North Sea and notoriously exposed to wind at this time of year.
He said: “As a goalkeeper, keeping yourself warm is an additional challenge. You need to keep yourself moving and keep yourself focused on the game. You can’t just stand there and allow yourself to get cold.
“You need to keep communicating with your back four even when the ball’s at the other end of the pitch. It’s an extra challenge.
“For me, the wind is probably the worst type of weather you can play in. It can ruin most sports
“Fortunately, last Sunday at Celtic Park there was no wind at the end of a weekend in which it had been horrendously windy. If we’d been playing at home on the Saturday, I’m not sure how that would have gone.
“We’ve avoided the really bad conditions when potentially the game might not have been on, but on Wednesday night, it was a blizzard just before the game started and very windy.
“We managed to get the ball down and played some decent football at times. You’ve just got to play the conditions.
“Hopefully we get a still, calm day on Saturday and we can get the ball down and play some football.”
Lewis hopes Aberdeen can capitalise on a busy run of fixtures in December after a patchy opening to the campaign in which they struggled to develop any consistency.
He said: “The international breaks in September, October and November disrupt the league campaign a little bit so it can be hard to get yourself on a real run.
“Now we’ve got December where you have a lot of games so it’s a chance to put a run together and have a really good month. We started that on Wednesday so we’re ready to knuckle down and make sure it’s an excellent month for us.”
