Are the postponement of yesterdays game I have been reading some interesting thoughts on why the pitch wasn't up to standards and I see Margaret Bryne had this to say.... SAFC Chief Executive Margaret Byrne said: âNaturally everyone is hugely disappointed that our opening game of the season could not go ahead as planned. I would like to express my sincere apologies to those fans, both home and away, who have travelled such distances to support their respective teams and had to go home disappointed. I would also like to thank the manager, players and officials from Reading for their understanding in this matter. âThe club has invested a significant sum into pitchworks over the summer months and we are confident that it is in first-class condition. We will however meet with our pitch consultants immediately to carry out a full analysis of todayâs events. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- I personally think its a problem with the pitch and not the talk of horrendous weather and what could we do. I see non league games went ahead in Sunderland yesterday and I rekon everyone has been to a game where the conditions have been a lot worse than yesterday, the 2-1 at SJP comes to mind were Super Kev scored than beauty into the top corner when it was like a monsoon. I just wonder with all the horrendous weather that we have seen this summer surely the club would of new what the pitch would be like if it had bad weather for a few hours, there is something seriously wrong if games are played non league a couple hundred yards away and a premier league game with all of the state of the art stuff is called off! I heard we have spent 300k on the pitch this summer!!! I bet the pitches at the AoL would of been fine! We need a roof on the SoL lmao!! Only time will tell what the reason was but if it is a fault with the pitch and the drainage how do you go around sorting that without digging the pitch up? Will we have to try and get 2-3 of our games reversed to give us a good few weeks to get it sorted or what? I bet Ellis Short and everyone at Sunderland were absolutely fuming yesterday http://www.readytogo.net/smb/showthread.php?t=725610
I think it was just the circumstance of the weather and a new pitch that maybe has been overly watered to start with and just suffered a heavy 24 hours rain. This will probably never happen again to be fair. Embarrassing but not the end of the world and gives our players an extra bit of time to get together. Remember it was the refs decision not SAFC's.
Surely if the drainage system is not that good, simply cover the pitch and drain the rainwater into the river. The problem yesterday was it had rained for hours, and everywhere was saturated, but the weather forecast said as much so we could have prepared! We could haves probably played in the rain if the pitch had been protected before hand!
Someone was telling me that they actually had the sprinklers on a few hours before the game, which if true I find astonishing..