Torquay United had to postpone a 1st Rd Football League tie against Portsmouth at Plainmoor. It was August 17th, Wednesday 1999. What else? The first total eclipse of the sun, the first since 1927. The game didn't take place! There were not enough police available to patrol the match, local area and tourist resorts. ..many came to witness the eclipse because that was going to be the best place to view it.
The match was replayed at Fratton Park, Pompey won 3-0 in the "replay".
February 1985 the Second Division match between Sheffield United and Oldham Athletic was postponed due to the presence of a Second World War bomb discovered near Bramall Lane. The game was played 3 days later when the bomb had been diffused.
In Scotland, between January 6th 1979 through to February 21, the Scottish Cup tie between Inverness CT and Falkirk was postponed due to iced pitches 29 times. On February 22nd, the 30th attempt, Falkirk won 4-0. Three days they had to play Dundee and lost 0-1.
John Barnes was due to make his debut for Liverpool in 1987-8 when his First Division match was postponed due to a broken sewer under the Kop. Three fixtures later he made his home debut onced the offending poo pipe had been mended, JB scored on "debut".
In August 2011, three nights of anti-authoritarianism protests and riots against the police shooting in Tottenham postponed League Cup ties between Charlton and Reading, Crystal Palace v Crawley, West Ham v Aldershot and Tottenham v Everton. Needless to say police numbers could not be shared between the two events. These also affected the England v Holland friendly at Wembley on August 10th.
and finally
Scotland were due to play Estonian at the Kadrioru Stadium, Tallinn on 9th October 1996 in a European Region World Cup Group 4 qualifier. There was one point between the two.
The match was due to be played in the evening but having trained on the pitch earlier, the Scots claimed the floodlights were inadequate. FIFA, agreeing, moved the game to an afternoon start. Estonia objected claiming to have been prepared for a later start. Referee, Miroslav Radoman, dug his heals in with the support of FIFA, of course, and led the Scots out onto the pitch in daylight. Estonian didn't join them and the ref invited Scotland to kick off (not sure how he arranged that?) and they played for a few seconds and the ref abandoned the game, giving Scotland the opporunity to progress in the group.
It was Duncan Ferguson's last international appearance after a "disagreement" with the Scottish FA. The Scots were disappointed to hear that FIFA insisted on a re-match which took place in neutral Monaco on 11th February and this ended in a 0-0 draw. Scotland progressed behind Austria and above Sweden.
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