I was still in two minds about whether or not to bother with the game today but the decision has been made for me. The Yann Kermorgant Memorial pitch is frozen and has failed it's inspection.
This surprised me, and quite a few others by the looks of it, as I thought from the much-heralded news after Roly's arrival that we now had under-soil heating. Speculation now as to whether or not we ever installed a boiler. It looks like Duchatelet paid for pipes to be laid but might not have run to the expense of a boiler to heat them! Apparently, the decision was always to do that if and when we ever got back into the Premier League and the expedient was that we could bring in temporary heating sources if necessary. Communication from someone at the club in the week suggested the decision was taken not to spend the money on temporary heating and the game is off as a result.
A postponement costs the club money as they will have made commitments today which will need to be honoured - staff, food etc. A night-game replay will also bring in less revenue but the total loss will now be much smaller given the shrinkage in home attendances and level of boycotting of club facilities.
The obvious question now is what precautions did we take to ensure the match could be played? Did we cover the pitch or do anything at all? Ebbsfleet have managed to get their match on which begs questions. That brings into question how much of an effort was made, given we have an-injury hit side? The good people of Scunthorpe may rightly be asking some questions.
This surprised me, and quite a few others by the looks of it, as I thought from the much-heralded news after Roly's arrival that we now had under-soil heating. Speculation now as to whether or not we ever installed a boiler. It looks like Duchatelet paid for pipes to be laid but might not have run to the expense of a boiler to heat them! Apparently, the decision was always to do that if and when we ever got back into the Premier League and the expedient was that we could bring in temporary heating sources if necessary. Communication from someone at the club in the week suggested the decision was taken not to spend the money on temporary heating and the game is off as a result.
A postponement costs the club money as they will have made commitments today which will need to be honoured - staff, food etc. A night-game replay will also bring in less revenue but the total loss will now be much smaller given the shrinkage in home attendances and level of boycotting of club facilities.
The obvious question now is what precautions did we take to ensure the match could be played? Did we cover the pitch or do anything at all? Ebbsfleet have managed to get their match on which begs questions. That brings into question how much of an effort was made, given we have an-injury hit side? The good people of Scunthorpe may rightly be asking some questions.
Result. Didn't fancy our chances with the amount of personnel missing today against high flying Scunny. You may have a point in asking just how much effort was made to prevent this postponement.... at least when it defrosts we won't have any flooding....
ReplyDeleteThe lights were on Friday night - now wish I had peeked over the wall to see what they were doing - or not doing as the case may be.
ReplyDeleteIn regards to your comparison to Ebbsfleet, they were fortunate to get that on.
ReplyDeletePopped down there with my boy, the pitch was frozen in places.
Couple of close calls regarding player injuries. A lot of falling over.
Good crowd (1500) and £12 for the pair of us to get in was excellent.
You can certainly see that money is being spent there.
Ironically Andrew Sykes are their sponsors.