On 21st January 2017, Southend United were to host Bolton Wanderers in a League Division One match but it was Ken Hare who lost out, being "sacked" as head groundsman, the person apparently responsible for the postponement of the game. After 27 years in Southend's employment, Ken was given the boot and despite a campaign to have him re-instated, he was offered a "mutally acceptable settlement", which resulted four months later in being sent a pair of club season tickets. Ken gracefully left the job.
http://www.whoateallthepies.tv/football-league/250093/ice-cold-southend-united-sack-head-groundsman-after-match-cancelled-due-to-frozen-pitch.html
In 1962-3 the Big Freeze took its toll and from Christmas for 3 months there was a huge backlog of fixtures cause by postponements due to frozen ground. The FA Cup Third Round, traditionally played in early January, only had three ties played at the first attempt. Its last tie was played on March 11th. Lincoln v Coventry was postponed 15 times. 14 other ties were postponed 10 or more times and of course, all this caused programme printers major problems.
On December 8th 1962 Bolton beat Spurs 1-0 but did not play a single competitive match until they lost 2-3 to the Arsenal on February 16th. The Cup match against Sheffield United was meant to be played "after many postponements"on 20th February, but it got postponed again (so we thought until one hour beforehand) to Wednesday March 6th. The Blades won 3-1 and the two met again on the 9th in a League game, Bolton winning 3-2.
The two clubs met twice more in 1963, on 25th September in the League Cup, 1-2 to Bolton and on the 16th November in the League with Sheffield losing at home 0-1.
Iverness Thistle and Falkirk tried to play their Scottish Cup 2nd Rd tie 29 times between 6th January 1979 and 22nd Feb 1979 when Falkirk eventually won 4-0 at the 30 try.
Three days later they played Dundee in the 3rd Round and lost at the first attempt.
No comments:
Post a Comment