Is that for them nice plants you grow 
Dunno what you mean 
I travelled from Wellingborough to Walsall for a McDonalds on the retail park.
I was inside the stadium when the referee was conducting his âinspectionâ in the goal area at the away end. The ball was bouncing, admittedly not as high as normal and it was running on the surface. To me if thatâs what it takes to call off a game we really are living in a nanny state. Some of the players were in the technical area looking absolutely flabbergasted that it wasnât on. I spoke briefly to Ben Boycott a few minutes after the announcement and he sounded cheesed off and said everyone wanted the game on.
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Yes, I remember that one - drove and was literally outside the ground looking for a parking space as we heard it was called off.
To prevent future postponements, maybe they should use a few grains of rice on the pitch to absorb the moisture like they do in seaside salt cellars?
Apparently the ref used to work on the railways and was adamant it was the wrong sort of rain and there was the odd leaf lying around.
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Football 20th century style. Ref gives the go-ahead for the game after a late pitch inspection.
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Football 21st century style.
Games off boys, water on the pitch!
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That wonât sit well with a fair few calling the club âtin potâ and âtypical Walsallâ, everyone at the club wanted it played and the pitch was pretty well playable, so had been maintained to a good enough standard, it was all down to the one man and his decision, nothing anyone can do about that.
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To my mind a football season is 9 months and therefore is played in at least part of all 4 seasons. In that time youâre going to come across pitches in a variety of conditions. If weâre going towards having to have pitches like green baize then weâll have a lot of postponements in the futute as lower leage clubs cannot afford to protect their pitches like PL clubs can.
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Spot on. I heard 3 or 4 Morecambe fans mouthing off to Ben using the F word at him. Ben tried to placate them but gave up cos the yobs wouldnât listen.
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You can 100% understand their frustration, would be exactly the same if the shoe was on the other foot, but when the club has no say on the outcome and it is all down to the one man in the middle to make these decisions, there is bugger all Ben or the club could or can do.
I like Ben and bravo to him for âtryingâ to calm the situation down.
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Looking ahead this means yet another fixture to fit in a crowded programme. It could be good if we can hit a rich vein of form on the other handâŚâŚâŚâŚâŚâŚ We seem doomed this season never to get in the top half of the table either through our own inadequacies or decisions made elsewhere.
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They play in the summer when the weather usually isnât as bad.
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They only cover the wicket/track, not the whole of the pitch .
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They donât play while it is actually raining.
Also, the rain that doesnât soak into the covered area is absorbed elsewhere (thereâs nowhere else for it to go). If we covered just the goal areas then they might be OK, but other parts would get more - and they were aready saturated. Then it would be unsafe because different areas of the pitch would have different textures and make it difficult for players to adjust (e.g. need extra long studs in the wet areas to avoid sliding, but only short ones in the drier bits).
Apart from that, yeah - how can cricket do it but football canât? 
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ErmâŚ. Itâs no secret that the e away end goalmouth is an issue in terms of drainage and not thawing properlyâŚ
Doesnât seem like rocket science to cover it.
As I said last night, I think we could have done more in that area, but ultimately itâs a problem with football in general and the referee being scared of a bit of water. It wasnât like Burtonâs pitch was it? Absolutely ridiculous.
I thought the communication from the club was poor too.
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When we finally get around to redoing the stands and removing the stanchions perhaps we could build a retractable roof at the same time?
I refer you back to my point about only covering part of the pitch but not all - it leads to an inconsistency of surface texture. If you listen to what he said, the ref who called off the Alfreton game did it because of that - not that parts were totally unplayable, but because the contrast between soft and hard bits was too much. In cricket thatâs not so much of a problem as batsmen tend to stay on the wicket, and fielders in the outfield - and never the twain shall meet! Maybe more of an issue for bowlers coming in from a wetter to drier area but the difference wonât be that massive to make it dangerous (or else the umpire wouldnât allow play to continue).
I suppose they could have covered the one goal for a bit and regulated the amount of water it got, but even if it was identical to the rest of the pitch at kick off, it was forecast to rain throughout the game and so wouldnât have been at the end.
Not rocket science, groundsmanship and meteorology.