Dan wrote:Bradders wrote:stag324 wrote:I’m 1/2 mile away and we still have snow.
I’ve taken the dog out this morning and the paths are like ice rinks.
Safety of fans first and pitch condition second
Some people are lacking a brain cell or three
Remember that the pitch inspection was an inspection of the pitch. If the club felt that the car park and surrounding areas hadn't thawed out enough in yesterday's warm sunshine, then I'd fully understand an evening announcement that the area was likely to be too unsafe to contemplate running the fixture. And like other clubs in the area, would have asked for volunteers to help yesterday in an effort to get it safe.
But they didn't,
they said that the pitch failed the inspection yesterday at 10, which can only mean that it was either frozen or too deeply buried to be dug out. It wasn't a crowd safety issue. The ref inspecting the pitch was only there to check whether it was currently safe to play on, and would be likely to be OK at match time. He could have declared the pitch playable, but that wouldn't force the club to stage the match if they didn't think that they could guarantee crowd safety.
It looks like we didn't want to go ahead with this one.
It wasn’t solely down to a pitch inspection. The pitch could’ve been fine but the surrounding areas were unsafe hence the decision being made. The official line was that and because Orient were setting off yesterday lunchtime. The unofficial line is because we’ve got loads of injuries and this postponement suits us perfectly.
I don't really buy that the decision was about the surrounding area. The club stated that it was "following a pitch inspection".
It was too far in advance to say what the status would be the next day, and Sheffield (for example) was much worse for snow yet the Blades fixture was never in doubt because of their pitch heating. Hallam University was closed, it was that bad at 10am. Never a word about the streets near the ground being a problem.
And if Orient wanted to set off a day early, that's their problem. They could have had a lovely night in Mansfield anyway.
I'm not really that bothered about the match being off, even though I'd been particularly looking forward to us playing Orient when they're looking a bit jaded. It's just that I was baffled by the peculiar way they went about the postponement, leaving us standing out as the only ground in all 7 top divisions of the English league unable to stage a match today.
I think that your unofficial line is the truth, although I'm not sure why Orient went along with it.