City left fuming at late decision

7:20pm Sunday 4th January 2009

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MANAGER Richard Dryden has branded the decision to postpone Worcester City’s match at Hayes and Yeading United an hour before kick-off as ridiculous.

City had already arrived at Church Road for Saturday’s Blue Square South fixture when referee Andy Newell called the game off because of a frozen pitch.

An inspection had been undertaken by a local referee at 9.30am and the pitch was deemed playable but he wanted the final decision to be made by Newell.

Newell tested the surface at around 1.45pm and, after consulting both managers, declared the pitch unsafe. A large area in front of the dug-outs, shaded from the sun by the main stand, had remained frozen while the touchline was also iced up.

The 11th-hour decision incensed Dryden, who hit out at Hayes’ handling of a situation that left City with a wasted 250-mile round trip. The Worcester boss said: “It’s disappointing and common sense has gone out of the window.

“I think Hayes wanted to rely on the official referee coming down to make the decision but, if that’s the case, they could get him down at 10am so we could have turned around earlier rather than telling us at 2pm. It’s ridiculous.

“To be fair, both clubs wanted to play it and it was down to the referee.

“I think he was worried it was going to get worse, which is fair enough, but it would have been even better if he had told us four or five hours beforehand.”

Dryden added: “It’s a wasted journey. We will get the money back on the coach because Hayes have called it off but it isn’t good enough.

“There were games off left, right and centre in London.

“People made decisions to call games off early because they knew what the weather was going to be like.”

Around 20 City fans had also made the journey down the M40 after waiting for advice from Hayes before setting out.

Keith Chambers, vice-chairman of the supporters’ club, said: “It’s nonsense — they said there was no doubt it was going to be on.

“We are every-week supporters and it costs a lot of money, certainly at this time of year and with the so-called credit crunch.

“A lot of people spend what little money they’ve got to come to these games.”

City have now seen their first two games of 2009 fall foul of the weather but may have a fully-fit squad available for the visit of Maidenhead on Saturday.

Dryden added: “It gives Graham Ward and Dave Bampton, who would have been missing, time to recover but that gives me no satisfaction whatsoever with the game not being on.

“In the last two months of the season, we could be playing two games a week with a very small squad.”