SOUTHPORT MATCH POSTPONED

[Iron Webbo]

SOUTHPORT MATCH POSTPONED
Heavy rainfall leaves - pitch under water
Following a lunchtime pitch inspection by a local referee, tomorrow's (Saturday's) Blue Square Bet Premier match at home to Southport has been postponed. Parts of the Amlin Stadium pitch were left saturated following heavy rain yesterday evening and the pitch was deemed unfit by the local referee. More news on a re-arranged date when we have it!

[mooresy25]

Will it ever come to the point that the FA fine the club for postponing so many games? We all understand the weather has been severly pants the last few months and staff/volunteers have been working incredibly hard to get games on, but if the FA see games at say Chelmsford & Sudbury still going ahead would they start to question our facilities and hold us accountable?

[Iron Webbo]

Very unlikely. We're not calling the games off - we want them on - but are being guided by the match officials that inspect our pitch. Generally I think there is a lot of sympathy for clubs that are struggling because of the extreme weather.

[mooresy25]

That's good to hear. The last thing our club needs is a fine from the FA.

[4whatitsworth]

Because Southport were going to leave at 1pm today that gave the groundstaff no time to do work
on the pitch after last nights rain.

[garygray]

Not happy with this at all........ Still i can get my lights fixed on the PED............ but still MAD GRRRRRRRRR

[bockingblue]

it is a joke it must be. All other local games are on!

[garygray]

Welcome Mr blue do you live in Bocking?

[ironhorse]

Once again the pitch is covered in water because its full up underneath. Nothing the club can do, if the water table cannot be drained then the constant wet weather is topping it up. I saw the pitch on Tuesday and it was apparent then that the game would not go ahead, snow and ice was then thawed by rain.
We will just have to put up with it till there is a long term break in this wet season.

[barryblue]

hi bocking blue just wonderd if you were my long lost brother last time i saw him was at wroxham about 25 years ago we were two goals down at the time and he just said (keep.it.clean) this im fed up watching this crap and left never saw him again oh by the way we came back to win 3.2 someone said he saw him at stamford bridge watching chelsea but that was the last i heard.

[braintreeo]

Gatehead who have had the same problem getting games on as Braintree, have agreed to play the rest of their home games at Hartlepool Uniteds Victoria Ground. (Including a game against BTFC) to allow thwm further time to sort their pitch out.

Perhaps the club could ask a favour of Colchester United, would allow tiome to get the pitch sorted and would negate the possibilty of a fixture backlog which is the last thing needed with such a small squad.

[Iron In Me Blood]

Have you seen the state of the pitch in Colchester??? There is more sand on it than we have on ours so won't take any extra games plus the expenses that the club would incur simply would break the bank owing to our lack of support!!!

[jacko]

Might introduce some col u fans to braintree f c.

[jacko]

Had 2 col u fans stand next to me at Hereford game said that must have been the first game they have seen where the goalie never rolled the ball out to a defender.They said is it always like that i said sadly yes.He replyed every balls in the air and their team were all big why not change and play it out from the keeper your players man for man are just as good.When subs were made he said why not change system instead of just personal.I couldn't answer.

[braintreeo]

Feb 16, 2013 12:43:03 GMT Iron In Me Blood said:

Have you seen the state of the pitch in Colchester??? There is more sand on it than we have on ours so won't take any extra games plus the expenses that the club would incur simply would break the bank owing to our lack of support!!!

Ironinmeblood - You are talking nonsense. Colchester's pitch is infinately better than Braintree's check it out here in their recent game against Swindon www.skysports.com/video/inline/0,26691,16528,00.html sure it's sanded but it's playable and Cressing Road isn't and has barely been playable for Two months..

As for expeneses, do you not think there is a cost to having a game postponed let alone having game after game postponed, better to play in front of a 300+ crowd rather than not play at all. these constant postponements will end up in a fixture backlog and with Braintrees tiny squad playing Saturday - Tuesday between now and the end of the season will lead to injuries and fatigue, I suspect relegation would cost a lot more long term than playing a few games at Colchester.

[ozbrit]

Thanks and welcome to our forum sgreen, wouldn't it be preferable to first introduce yourself, rather than tell us what we already know!

The Amlin is obviously one of the less appointed for this league, if you followed this forum/local newspapers et-al you would appreciate that we are in the throes of having a new ground built - even the picture atop this forums pages is a bit of a give away... Planning and building stadiums are often protracted affairs, particularly when you have the local authority as project partner.

The town is pretty much on it's own. Southend is 35miles distant, Cambridge even further. I wonder would you opt to play Southport matches at Stockport? I'd guess not, as that'd essentially lose your club home status.
You obviously haven't noticed that Chelmsford has a worse fixture pile up than us, having had as many of league games called off, they also have a rubbish ground which even their own fans diss and is possibly not up to standard for BSP football. As for AFC Sudbury that's a Ryman ground - nuff said. You in the North West traditionally get higher rainfall than us in the East, Braintree in particular has had it's wettest couple of seasons on record that plus a pitch with a clay subsoil is not the best combination. Conversely I'm also aware that the Southport area is well known for it's light soils.

Postponed matches are regrettable, the Club loses out big time and the subsequent gates will suffer when the games eventually gets played. I don't recall many coming down last season, was the figure in the tens or the hundreds? I guess it's the former!

Then on to Gateshead, I don't think the ground they normally play on is even theirs, which would have made their move ground decision a relatively simple one to make.

Stop press! I note the that the post by the Southport supporter which was displayed above this one has now gone - presumably by the author himself.