Well, as 5th Searcher has commented on the text update thread, I am very p'ed off with todays happenings.
I was staying at relatives just 5 miles down the road at Ickenham, near Uxbridge. Low overnight temperatures had been predicted and in fact there was heavy frost on the cars this morning, but there was bright sunshine, although it was unlikely temperatures would rise much.
My brother in Law and I arrived at just approaching 2:30 and the parked up team coach was just in sight. As we reached it some Darts supporters were leaving the ground saying the game had just been called off. I thought it was a wind up, but in fact, they were right. The access gate to the pitch was open. We went on the pitch, and 95% of the pitch was playable, but the strip along the front of the stand. no more than 3m wide, was hard with frost. The goal nets were up and ready for the match. I would have thought a bit of effort would have been worthwhile to keep the match on, in the way that Darts supporters cleared the pitch of water to get the match v Cray played at Christmas.
My thoughts are that Harrow did not put in sufficient effort to protect the pitch. Given that they should have been anticipating their biggest gate of the season by far, it would not have taken too much effort to either have protected that area last night or taken action to thaw out the pitch this morning. So in the first instance, I put the blame on Harrow officials, and secondly put the blame on the referee for not taking an earlier decision. Harrow might have made a bit on the bar takings today with pre-match sales, but equally they must have lost a packet with no fans coming through the gate.
When Premiership matches were postponed during the snow up, not because the pitch was unfit, but because the approaches were unsafe for spectators, and games called off to prevent fans travelling, then todays late decision is totally unacceptable.
Travelling down from Merseyside I had previously said that if todays game had been called off because of a waterlogged pitch, then I would have made efforts to get to the Valley to see Tranmere play Charlton. However, todays late decision left me with insufficient time to get over to the valley. It's not possible to get there in 30 minutes, but would have easily been possible within 2 hours.
However, having arrived at the ground, we stilll decided to have a drink and meet up with a few of the travelling Darts fans. HAfter all, how could I possibly turn down the opportunity of a pint or two of Shepherds Neames draught Bishops Fingers
Bonuses for the day though were meeting up with fellow Darts supporters, players and management team and Dave Skinner. Top bonus was to see Wealdstone, who I think are our closest rivals, dropping two more points.
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Topic: Harrow Borough vs Dartford Sat 30th Jan 2010 3pm ko (Read 7379 times)