Common sense lacking at Hayes

8:40am Tuesday 6th January 2009

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WORCESTER City will now play their Blue Square South match at Hayes and Yeading United in March.

The date was confirmed yesterday so we can all make our way down the M40 to Church Road for the second time.

Of course, the first journey on Saturday should never have been made in the first place had a little bit of common sense been employed.

Postponing a game is one thing. Calling it off when the players and fans are already at the ground is quite another. And, quite frankly, it’s not good enough.

What makes the situation all the more galling is that, following an early-morning pitch inspection by a local referee, Hayes said the match would go ahead and advised City to travel.

Yet, when City arrived, they were met with a rock-solid surface that was never going to have been fit for play in a month of Sundays.

The local referee had asked for the final decision to be taken by Bristol official Andy Newell, who arrived at around 1.45pm and wasted little time in postponing the fixture.

In essence, Hayes passed the buck and left Newell with no option.

I don’t blame Newell for the farcical scenes — that lies firmly with the home club.

Quite simply, whoever looked at the pitch at 9.30am should have abandoned it there and then. That they believed it would improve throughout the course of the day suggests they were hoping for miracles.

A large section of turf was under shade and had no chance of thawing.

Had no-one in Hayes seen a weather forecast since Christmas? It is not as if the pitch had been submerged by a monsoon an hour before kick-off.

Even as I travelled to the game, matches all around the London area were being cancelled one by one.

Not surprisingly, City were livid. Graham Ward and Dave Bampton having an extra few days to recover from injuries was no consolation for manager Richard Dryden.

Football secretary Graham Hill said: “I think the general feeling was we were disappointed the decision wasn’t made when they had the initial inspection.”

However, the lateness of the decision should not be so surprising.

On December 6, Redditch United travelled to Blyth Spartans — a 500-mile round trip — only for a frozen pitch to claim the game just 30 minutes before kick-off.

Tranmere fans would have been a sizeable chunk of the way to Colchester at the weekend when their FA Cup third round tie was called off because of the weather.

It is high time clubs were held accountable for their actions when they appear to take little consideration for those affected.

Hayes have agreed to pay for the team coach when the sides meet again on March 10.

Perhaps the Middlesex outfit would also like to reimburse the £300 spent by fans on a bus to follow their team for the first fixture of 2009?

Common sense needs to prevail, as it did when City called off their New Year’s Day game against Newport in time to stop the Welshmen travelling, so Saturday’s scenes are not repeated.