OFF: ECFC V Barnsley : MDT 24th January 7.45pm

[SEA Grecian]

I think this mindset was a consequence of Covid and resulting fixture pile ups, the EFL becoming twitchy about not getting all the games in. So games have to be rearranged for first available date after 3 weeks from the postponement.

IIRC It was the same when City got sent to Barrow for a rearranged fixture in the depths of winter, which was then called off for a second time.

I think the rule to re-arrange games as quickly as possible has been in place for a while but this is the third season in a row it's caused us problems. As well as the Barrow game there was the ludicrous decision to make us play Forest Green away last season when we were still recovering from covid rampaging through our squad.

 

[Colesman Ballz]

The season the Darlington game was called off three times was 1998-99.

That's the badger ! Thanks.

 

[Ex-ciderrr]

Found out just as I put my seat belt on.

Really feel for those who have travelled. A friend of mine travelled down from Hereford and got the news just as he got off the M5 in Exeter.

Not sure who is at fault but the fact of the matter is the communication has been uncharacteristically appalling. We are always quick to rightly praise our brilliant media team but today has been tinpot.

agreed, but beyond tinpot in this instance.

 

[Red red]

I remember getting to Northampton once as they put on the board outside postponed I was also involved in a game at Yeovil as a match official out warming up for the game the clouds opened it started to pour down flooded the pitch so the game didn’t start so it will always happen not appalling just the British weather not nice when it happens but that’s life

 

[Antony Moxey]

It's when they said updates throughout the day then nothing until they called the game off after the jokull announcement. That's what most people were angry about

What did you want them to do? They would have been giving hourly updates to say the game was still on until the ref carried out the pitch inspection and said it wasn’t. Updates are new information: there wasn’t any, the situation remained the same throughout the day.

Like I said previously: playable, playable, playable, playable, playable, playable, unplayable. Oh, thanks for the updates though.

 

[Antony Moxey]

Why am I not surprised.

Because you knew your post was nonsense and it was unlikely to have many agreeing with you?

 

[Moomin Grecian]

What did you want them to do? They would have been giving hourly updates to say the game was still on until the ref carried out the pitch inspection and said it wasn’t. Updates are new information: there wasn’t any, the situation remained the same throughout the day.

Like I said previously: playable, playable, playable, playable, playable, playable, unplayable. Oh, thanks for the updates though.

There wasn’t even mention of an inspection though, which I think is what’s ******* so many off. That’s one piece of new info that would have been helpful.

 

[arthur]

Given that it was only a small area of the pitch that caused the problem, might there be measures that can be taken to reduce the likelihood of this happening again? Apologies if this point has been made already

 

[MJP_Exeter]

Given that it was only a small area of the pitch that caused the problem, might there be measures that can be taken to reduce the likelihood of this happening again? Apologies if this point has been made already

How much is undersoil heating these days? Even if we did a part installation on the worse effected areas? Maybe the next big capital project?

 

[Antony Moxey]

Given that it was only a small area of the pitch that caused the problem, might there be measures that can be taken to reduce the likelihood of this happening again? Apologies if this point has been made already

I would say that given we probably only get one game a decade called off because of a frozen pitch it’s probably something not worth spending money on. We could look at under soil heating, but my guess is it would be many, many decades before we saw a return on that investment.