Freebie Friday: Pitch inspections becoming farcical

Too many what if's and maybe's need some clarification

Pitch inspection. The two dreaded words when the rain lashes down or the frost, ice and snow takes hold and renders a pitch unplayable. We’ve seen over the last couple of months those two words in almost constant use, indeed some teams have managed to play one game in the past four weeks and I guess most years we are lucky to not have a month or two without playing.

The timing of them is the reason for the blog and if there appears to be a lack of thought process going around when it comes to the respect of everyone involved in playing, watching or arranging the game.

We can all remember when the pandemic year had commentators and clubs crying out for fans to be allowed into stadiums once again, crowd noise being pumped into the top division games and soulless experiences in others as the season went on.

Tuesday night this week, games being called off across the country and being reported across social media. My trip to The Hive to watch Barnet each time takes around three hours so I have a very early start off, which doesn’t bother me, I had a year where I couldn’t attend and don’t take it for granted now.

Image courtesy of voicenewspapers.co.uk

When I left at around 3.30pm no pitch inspection called nor an indication of the game being off despite a text message from a friend who had driven through the area where cars were still iced over and frozen water in puddles.

I ended up 20 minutes away from The Hive when the game was postponed due to a couple of areas on the pitch that had become unplayable, namely those with less grass which isn’t surprising.

Now I’m not after sympathy at all for making the journey, that made no odds to me at all, purely my choice of course. What I do have issue with is the fact Yeovil fans were allowed to travel the same amount of time for a game that was 90% unlikely to have taken place.

That in itself is unforgivable and completely avoidable. And they’re not the first this season to have come up against this. Some will say their choice to travel, granted it is, but when there is no inkling before you leave it will be called off why would you not be going to support your team? After all you’ve paid for your spot on the coach, taken half a day off work in some cases, it’s a done deal.

So, a 6pm pitch inspection when Yeovil fans had left at around 3.30, come on is that fair? Barnet FC took the brunt for the game being called off, blamed for advertising all through the day for tickets and announcing mid-way through the day the game was still on, so let’s take those two points.

No club has the ability to call off a game in the football pyramid, that’s from the top right the way down to grassroots level, it’s the referee and him/her only, end of. Clubs can advise what and how the surface looks which is protocol and then said match official should be using some common sense.

Given the weather prior, during and expected that evening this match referee should have been far more pro-active given the distance for away fans to travel and if there was even a 1% doubt call it off and save the drama. People won’t be happy, it’s another game to fit in the schedule but is that a priority over lost monies, lost time and general resentment after? No, I don’t think so, quite wrongly Barnet were hauled over the coals for this, not their decision, remember that when you’re an away fan suffering the same.

To the other point, why wouldn’t they still be advertising the game? What if the referee was perfectly happy at 6pm with the full arena, he was still earlier in the day when the club tweeted out match details, announce it’s on at 6pm but potentially a lower attendance because people automatically think it’s off? Barnet like all clubs get things wrong, this time it’s wrong to criticise them.

From a purely selfish point of view, had the inspection had been an hour earlier I could have turned around and made Ebbsfleet vs Chelmsford instead, but again pretty irrelevant for me, just a side note.

Dorking Wanderers I know suffered I think twice on an away trip to Halifax this season, Kings Lynn had the same on Tuesday evening travelling to Brackley and the game called off 50 minutes before kick-off, that’s unacceptable to me.

Given the struggle for money and making every penny count for yourself or a football club there needs to be a better and more robust way of sorting these inspections out.

It’s not as if it’s a problem that has occurred just this season, we can go back years to find games called off just before kick-off and also called game on too, the latter affecting preparations at times especially if a side ‘doesn’t fancy it’ in the conditions, tales of ‘influence’ from club officials and even the pie seller who was expecting a busy Boxing Day trade, no word of a lie!

Those festive times can be the worst for inspections, the mindset for some especially in teams not doing well will switch from playing to wanting to be elsewhere with things to do.

Back in those days there were plenty of instances where teams travelled as well as the fans and got wind on the way of an inspection, stuck in limbo neither here nor there, kit men turning up after a three hour drive, only someone forgot to tell them the game was off. That is most unlikely these days, with mobile phones and social media plastering it everywhere.

So, what is the solution? In my opinion any pitch inspection must be in advance of travelling fans leaving, I appreciate you can’t legislate for sudden downpours that occur, there will be exceptions but when there are conditions like the ice and frozen temperatures or potential for the pitch to freeze during the evening or afternoon then take the sensible option and postpone it, isn’t that more preferable as a home or visiting fan to save a wasted journey or a watching a part game take place?

The other is to sort out properly these refereeing appointments. Tuesday night’s official at The Hive came from Bournemouth, a similar length of journey as me. Now, are the National League seriously expecting an official who is not a full time employee to drive up early, make an inspection and then sit around waiting until kick off time? It’s 2023, we should by now be able to have a protocol set up that there is a list of officials able to conduct a pitch inspection on behalf and use the same method of deduction to agree it’s on or off.

Some of this seems like simple to me, but we’ve seen in the past some organisations struggle to implement that in everyday life. Feel free to disagree, feel free to add in the comments anything you’d like to see happen to combat this kind of thing happening as much as we can, someone somewhere down the line foots the bill, it’s a cost most can ill afford.

Footnote. As I write this on Friday afternoon a few games are already off for tomorrow including four in the National League, once again criticism of the early decisions on social media, does appear we’ve gone from one end of the pendulum to the other, hence why there needs to be more clarification.