Non-League Paper Programme: When the weather wins – the frustration of last-minute postponements

If there’s one thing we dread at NLP Towers on a Saturday, it’s attempting to keep abreast with the raft of postponements caused by wet and wintery conditions.

Dummy pages have to be written and drawn, sometimes never used, match pages require a complete overhaul and reporters need contacting with revised instructions for those games that do go ahead. It’s an absolute nightmare, believe me!

But we are not the only ones whose days has been put out by such an event.

Managers, players, supporters, matchday volunteers, are all of which are severely inconvenienced – and also out of pocket with both clubs too losing thousands in travel expenses and lost revenue.

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Frustration

And then there’s the poor matchday referees – the ones who make those all-important decisions to call a game off for whatever reason, causing anger, frustration and often resentment for all concerned. They simply can not win.

Safety of the players must come first and referees know that if something does go wrong, then there are huge consequences. The last thing they want is to call a game off – no-one is doing so deliberately.

This week in The NLP, we ran a guest column with Farnborough manager Spencer Day.

His team found themselves at the eye of a storm, quite literally, a fortnight ago, when their National League South game with Chelmsford City was postponed very late on.

And their game wasn’t the only one to fall, with other local matches at Eastleigh and on the 4G at Bracknell also falling at the 11th hour, along with Bath City v Southend United in the FA Trophy, much to the ire of the away contingent who had travelled almost the entire width of the country, only to be turned away.

No resolution

A number of theories and unfounded suggestions have been thrown out there in a bid to combat such an eventuality, but according to the Boro boss, there is no resolution.

“We live in the UK and the truth of it is we are bound by the weather,” Day told us. “Our games fell to the most bizarre conditions seen for quite some time.

“I saw our pitch on Friday and I was amazed by the excellent condition it was in.

“I’d been communicating with Chelmsford and [manager] Angelo Harrop all week and when I got to the game on Saturday, I walked it, as I always do, and didn’t see any issue at all. The pitch looked fantastic.

“Then, 40 minutes later, the referee turns up and told us there was an area of the pitch that had frozen over that he wanted to look at.

“I mean, yes, it was hard, no question, but it was tiny, about a foot in area, and the temperatures weren’t dropping.”

Crazy

He added: “In theory, could we have tried something? Maybe, I’m not sure. Could we have chucked boiling water on it?

“Again, I don’t know. But it was obvious at the time, at that point, that it had to be called off, so I’m not blaming him.

“After he called the game off, I left the ground at 5 o’clock, and I decided I wanted to walk the pitch just to see what it was like, and it completely softened.

“It had actually got warmer, which is crazy. It’s the weather. I wish there was an answer.”

With a handful of games postponed last Saturday due to waterlogged pitches, and more bad weather on the way, don’t expect this situation to be brushed under the carpet anytime soon.

Health & Safety is top of the priority list of football authorities and in these days of social media, such decisions come under scrutiny like never before, adding copious amounts of pressure to the officials, part-time themselves more often than not.

Risk adverse

Has the world has gone risk adverse? Day, for one, believes it has, but he also urges supporters to step back and look at the bigger picture when letting their frustrations be known. 

“I’m a big supporter of the leagues, the FA and politicians – I think they have impossible jobs,” he said.

“They are damned if they do and damned if they don’t in whatever decision they make.

“Everyone’s trying their best to resolve what is an impossible situation, but sometimes your best isn’t always the popular decision.

“All you can do is apologise to everyone, but in some respects, I don’t know what we’re apologising for.

“No-one can control the weather.”

READ MORE: Non-League Paper Programme: Liam Hughes on finding purpose beyond the pitch