By Matt Badcock
Needham Market boss Richard Wilkins hopes the club's “forced withdrawal” from the FA Trophy will prompt The FA to review their rulebook.
Last Saturday's match at Weymouth was postponed due to a waterlogged pitch with the Suffolk outfit, who play in the Southern Premier Central division, already on the south coast following an overnight stay.
In a statement, Needham say they felt it “unreasonable” to play the rearranged fixture – a 484-mile round trip – as soon as last Tuesday.
With their part-time players already taking a day off work last Friday to travel – a journey they say took seven hours – they argued it wasn't fair to ask employers for more annual leave in the week before Christmas.
The statement read: “Having experienced the travelling time on Friday / Saturday (14th / 15th) which resulted in a journey slightly in excess of seven hours each way, it would be necessary to leave Needham Market at 11.00 am on Tuesday 18th and arrive back at the club at approximately 05.30 am on the morning of Wednesday 19th. Factor in that a number of our players reside in north Norfolk, this would result in additional travelling in excess of one hour for those players, which makes it apparent that two days holiday would be required.”
Needham called for “common sense” but their request for the game to instead be played yesterday or this coming Saturday was knocked back.
Boss Wilkins says the Marketmen's frustration was further compounded by the fact Tuesday night replays postponed because of the bad weather have now been scheduled for January 8.
“Football is their second job, I'm a teacher and can't just leave at 11am,” Wilkins told The NLP. “It was almost impossible. Even our academy players would still be in school.
“I know people can say Weymouth would have come to you on Tuesday night if it had gone to a replay but at least they understood that may well happen if we drew the game. Even then we would have said the journey is far too far on a midweek.
“It's the busiest week in the calendar. If you're a builder, you've got to get jobs done. If you're in retail the shops are busy.
I can understand rules and rules and where do you draw the line? But how can the rule be you have to play the game by Thursday then all of a sudden other clubs can play on January 8?
“We're bitterly disappointed. We wanted to play the game. If anybody thought we didn't want to go down there for £6,000 then they are much mistaken.
“If they said you can play on Tuesday, January 8 then at least everybody could have made arrangements to have the day off.”
Wilkins believes the authorities need to have more flexibility within their rules but an FA Spokesperson said: “Needham Market FC's fixture against Weymouth FC in the First Round Proper of the Buildbase FA Trophy on Saturday 15 December was postponed due to a waterlogged pitch.
“We understand the challenges that a postponed match can have, however, for fairness to all clubs in the competition and to prevent causing disruption to other competitions, we must ensure that rearranged matches are scheduled within the rules of the competition. In this case, the rearranged match was scheduled to be played on Tuesday 18 December.
Subsequently, Needham Market FC decided they could not fulfil this fixture and therefore chose to withdraw from the competition. As a result, Weymouth FC will progress through to the next round.”
