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Linnets - pitch inspection

All credit to linnets for all the work they did to try and get the game on.
My problem is the officials. No matter what anyone says about it. I will disagree!
Very little weather would have affected the pitch between the match referees arrival and the time it got called off. Doesn’t matter how many inspections he did before the game. They couldn’t have been very good!
The league need to assess how this is done. We have had to travel twice now to away games to be turned away shortly before the game.
I spoke to the linnets goalkeeper who said it was playable.
 
Joining the 100 plus said:
Just a thought , Was the local ref that passed the pitch as playable the same local ref who passed the Runcorn Town pitch as playable a few weeks ago ?
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On this occasion, it’s the match referees fault. He did numerous inspections following his arrival. The weather wasn’t that severe in an hour!
 
Andy said:
Game now off in another farcical spectical from a Runcorn based team
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That comments bang out of order. Let’s look at the timeline of events here before blaming Linnets.

20:00 last night - pitch a bit soft but absolutely fine

9:00 - Club open up to find the pitch covered in snow. Cleared some and found it not frozen underneath. Message sent out for snow clearing volunteers.

10:00 - Volunteers begin clearing the snow from the pitch, terraces and walkways.

11:00 - First formal pitch inspection carried out, pitch deemed playable with a warning that a deterioration in the weather would be a big problem. You can see that clearly in the text message you posted on here Andy.

11:00 - 13:30 - Probably 4 separate blizzards of snow, hail and some sleet fell in that time while people continually worked on the pitch.

13:30 - Match referee carries out his pitch inspection when arriving at the ground, agrees the pitch is still just about playable and will let the game go ahead as both teams also wanted to play, but warns the game will be in major doubt if there’s anymore snow or wet weather.

14:20 - Start of a 50 minute heavy snowfall with some hail and rain mixed in at times.

14:40 - Match ref carries out his third inspection but now surface water had started to settle in one corner of the pitch which stopped the ball rolling or bouncing. He then made a very strong decision to postpone the game with probably 350+ people in the ground and players kitted out.

So that’s exactly what happened, where in that is the farcical showing from Runcorn Linnets? The club did everything to get the game on for us and yourselves. They could of not even bothered leaving the house this morning and not give themselves a cold each and just had the game called off.

I spoke to the referee afterwards and personally I think he did everything to perfection. Too many referees just call a game off, often when it doesn’t warrant it. And get criticism for not giving games a chance. This guy gave it every chance until the appearance of surface water shortly before kick off made the decision for him. And is now being criticised for giving it a chance!

Some of the comments above I’m finding astonishing. I know some of you often struggle to see things that referees do, or see things happen on a pitch that didn’t actually happen, but to be looking out of our clubhouse window at a 40 minute blizzard at 14:30 and now say you didn’t see that either is taking it to a whole new level.

Luckily every 1874 fan I spoke to and overheard we’re spot on and knew the situation.

This is totally different from your situation with Town recently, where one of their volunteers declared the pitch playable before calling in a local ref who disagreed.

Believe me I’m as disappointed as anyone. 5 years tomorrow since my Dad passed away and my non-football following family sponsored the match in his honour, but didn’t actually get a match for him.
 
J_Haze_Fan said:
On this occasion, it’s the match referees fault. He did numerous inspections following his arrival. The weather wasn’t that severe in an hour!
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I sat in the car outside the ground for about 30 minutes from about 20 past 2 and it absolutely battered it down with snow/rain.. it’s no ones fault the game was cancelled, just one of those things! It’s a shame and yes we are all disappointed but with comments like some above we don’t do ourselves any favours as a fan base!
 
Ste
I was going to post a time line, but you have summed it up better than I could have.

It was a game that everyone was looking forward to and I understand frustration but this situation was not the fault of Linnets or the Officials.

Linnets did everything they could. The Inspecting Ref and Match Ref made decisions based on the conditions at the time. That's how it should be because you can't always foresee what will happen with the weather.

When the Ref inspected initially, he warned us that it may be a problem if more snow or rain came down. I then saw a bit of blue trying to break through and I thought we would be ok. But it turned, and we had a blizzard!!

Folks - this has happened to us and I have no doubt that it will again. We had a situation a few weeks ago with our Vase opponents, who thought we had not done the best by them. Nothing could be further from the truth and you were frustrated with some of the things they were saying. So please, let's not stand and point fingers. It was 'one of those situations' today.

We had someone there today, who had gone to a humungous effort to travel to the game. I would have loved us to have played for that person and would have been ecstatic if we had won for him. Life can be difficult at times, and whilst travelling there to not watch a game is inconvenient, it's not the greatest problem in life.

Let's all move on now.

Ste - we will come and take the 3 points off you sometime in the new year
 
stebiggy said:
That comments bang out of order. Let’s look at the timeline of events here before blaming Linnets.

20:00 last night - pitch a bit soft but absolutely fine

9:00 - Club open up to find the pitch covered in snow. Cleared some and found it not frozen underneath. Message sent out for snow clearing volunteers.

10:00 - Volunteers begin clearing the snow from the pitch, terraces and walkways.

11:00 - First formal pitch inspection carried out, pitch deemed playable with a warning that a deterioration in the weather would be a big problem. You can see that clearly in the text message you posted on here Andy.

11:00 - 13:30 - Probably 4 separate blizzards of snow, hail and some sleet fell in that time while people continually worked on the pitch.

13:30 - Match referee carries out his pitch inspection when arriving at the ground, agrees the pitch is still just about playable and will let the game go ahead as both teams also wanted to play, but warns the game will be in major doubt if there’s anymore snow or wet weather.

14:20 - Start of a 50 minute heavy snowfall with some hail and rain mixed in at times.

14:40 - Match ref carries out his third inspection but now surface water had started to settle in one corner of the pitch which stopped the ball rolling or bouncing. He then made a very strong decision to postpone the game with probably 350+ people in the ground and players kitted out.

So that’s exactly what happened, where in that is the farcical showing from Runcorn Linnets? The club did everything to get the game on for us and yourselves. They could of not even bothered leaving the house this morning and not give themselves a cold each and just had the game called off.

I spoke to the referee afterwards and personally I think he did everything to perfection. Too many referees just call a game off, often when it doesn’t warrant it. And get criticism for not giving games a chance. This guy gave it every chance until the appearance of surface water shortly before kick off made the decision for him. And is now being criticised for giving it a chance!

Some of the comments above I’m finding astonishing. I know some of you often struggle to see things that referees do, or see things happen on a pitch that didn’t actually happen, but to be looking out of our clubhouse window at a 40 minute blizzard at 14:30 and now say you didn’t see that either is taking it to a whole new level.

Luckily every 1874 fan I spoke to and overheard we’re spot on and knew the situation.

This is totally different from your situation with Town recently, where one of their volunteers declared the pitch playable before calling in a local ref who disagreed.

Believe me I’m as disappointed as anyone. 5 years tomorrow since my Dad passed away and my non-football following family sponsored the match in his honour, but didn’t actually get a match for him.
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If these further inspections were communicated to fans I’d have no gripes, but they weren’t. If we Knew 3 further inspections had taken place we wouldn’t have a leg to stand on moaning. But is far as your average fan is aware, the game was called on at 11 then off 15 mins before KO. We don’t all get inside information like yourself!!

No one criticising the efforts of any volunteers so your manufactured outrage is wasted here.

FACT - third 1874 away game in a row that a clubs called on then postponed last minute - you can’t swerve the reality that it’s not doing the club any favours in clawing back support.
 
All credit to all who worked on the pitch at linnets. Great respect for you all to put time and effort into trying to get the pitch ready.
 
Andy said:
If these further inspections were communicated to fans I’d have no gripes, but they weren’t. If we Knew 3 further inspections had taken place we wouldn’t have a leg to stand on moaning. But is far as your average fan is aware, the game was called on at 11 then off 15 mins before KO. We don’t all get inside information like yourself!!

No one criticising the efforts of any volunteers so your manufactured outrage is wasted here.

FACT - third 1874 away game in a row that a clubs called on then postponed last minute - you can’t swerve the reality that it’s not doing the club any favours in clawing back support.
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Your assuming things you don’t even know Andy. I didn’t get any inside information whatsoever, I was sat in the clubhouse and was only aware that the 14:40 inspection had taken place when Kyle Hamid told us the ref had called it off. I only know about the other inspections because Vicki mentioned them!! I’m just an average fan, not a club official of any kind. But to be honest if you’d of looked out of the window you would of seen the ref walking around the pitch yourself!

Why would it of made a difference to you if you had known about the referee doing the other inspections, they all passed! So you would of known that 3 inspections had passed but it still would of been called off at 14:40. How would that of helped?

My manufactured anger isn’t anger, it’s frustration that you called us farcical despite all the facts staring you in the face.

And your game with Town wasn’t called off last minute, it was called off at lunchtime of a 19:45 kick off. At least use facts if your going to slate situations.
 
Vicki England said:
Ste
I was going to post a time line, but you have summed it up better than I could have.

It was a game that everyone was looking forward to and I understand frustration but this situation was not the fault of Linnets or the Officials.

Linnets did everything they could. The Inspecting Ref and Match Ref made decisions based on the conditions at the time. That's how it should be because you can't always foresee what will happen with the weather.

When the Ref inspected initially, he warned us that it may be a problem if more snow or rain came down. I then saw a bit of blue trying to break through and I thought we would be ok. But it turned, and we had a blizzard!!

Folks - this has happened to us and I have no doubt that it will again. We had a situation a few weeks ago with our Vase opponents, who thought we had not done the best by them. Nothing could be further from the truth and you were frustrated with some of the things they were saying. So please, let's not stand and point fingers. It was 'one of those situations' today.

We had someone there today, who had gone to a humungous effort to travel to the game. I would have loved us to have played for that person and would have been ecstatic if we had won for him. Life can be difficult at times, and whilst travelling there to not watch a game is inconvenient, it's not the greatest problem in life.

Let's all move on now.

Ste - we will come and take the 3 points off you sometime in the new year
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Come on Vicki be serious, when have you ever come to us and left with 3 points!
 
stebiggy said:
And your game with Town wasn’t called off last minute, it was called off at lunchtime of a 19:45 kick off. At least use facts if your going to slate situations.
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Tow Law was a home game, not an away game, pal.
 
Andy said:
Tow Law was a home game, not an away game, pal.
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What are you on about now? Who mentioned Tow Law??

You said that your last 3 away games have been postponed last minute after earlier being declared on. One of those 3 games was against Runcorn Town, and I was pointing out that match wasn’t called off even close to last minute, it was called off almost 7 hours before kick off. Pal.
 
stebiggy said:
What are you on about now? Who mentioned Tow Law??

You said that your last 3 away games have been postponed last minute after earlier being declared on. One of those 3 games was against Runcorn Town, and I was pointing out that match wasn’t called off even close to last minute, it was called off almost 7 hours before kick off. Pal.
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My apologies I miss read it, not hard when Tow Law will last in our memories as the only club we’ve played that I’d never want to face again.

As for Town - the pitch had “no problems” then after 3 hours of sunshine was waterlogged!!!

I’ve not once criticised the volunteers so I wouldn’t take that to heart. I have the utmost respect for them so you’re wasting your time trying to make out otherwise.

Even Linnets fans I was talking to leaving the ground weren’t impressed, so look a little closer to home first!!!
 
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I didn’t say you were criticising the fans or volunteers, but you did call the club farcical when the club as a whole was completely faultless. Any of our own supporters who criticised our club, and there were some your right, are also out of order. But we have supporters who criticise our club over everything, and I mean everything. Best just to ignore them.

The best people to take advice from on this would be your own manager Goody, who said over and over again last night that after the huge flurry in the hour before kick off that it was the right decision to call the game off. If managers feel it then you have to believe them, they will be looking after the interests of your players.
 
stebiggy said:
I didn’t say you were criticising the fans or volunteers, but you did call the club farcical when the club as a whole was completely faultless. Any of our own supporters who criticised our club, and there were some your right, are also out of order. But we have supporters who criticise our club over everything, and I mean everything. Best just to ignore them
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We’ll have to agree to disagree on that one. Twitter is probably the best place to get information on match days - and Linnets tweeted that the game was on at 11am, then nothing until 2.45 saying the game was off. My only point is if there was communications with the fans regarding further inspections rather than 4 hours of silence you’d have a lot less pee’d off people from both sets of fans.

Like you said though, ignore the critics. But that’s a dangerous game - especially for a fans run club like Linnets! But I’m not a Linnets fan so it’s non of my business what your club does with people saying things you don’t like!

All I can say is I’m very glad that 1874 have a great text services for fans.
 
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I just don’t see how it would of made a difference. The updates would of been something like....

11:00 - Game on but further bad weather puts us at risk

13:30 - Game still on but further bad weather puts us at risk

14:00 - Game still on but further bad weather puts us at risk

14:40 - Game off due to the last 40 minutes of bad weather

I can guarantee you that 99% of people would still have been just as frustrated with the postponement even if it was done like that. The clubs tweet, website updates and comms to Vicki at 11:00 did say that further bad weather risks the game. People chose to accept that risk and travel to the ground.

We obviously aren’t ever going to agree on this because Ive always been of the opposite mindset. Unless the teams coming from miles away (Tow Law a good example) then give the game every chance of going ahead if the pitch is deemed playable by the local referee in the morning. In our league far too many games are just simply called off at 10:00am because the pitch is wet with no efforts to clear it or allow it to dry out. And teams get slated for it.

Imagine what the feelings and outrage would of been if the message at 11:00am was “the pitch has passed its inspection with a local referee, but we have decided to call it off anyway in case it snows later on”.
 
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