Gulls Fans Not Happy With Postponement

Torquay fans were far from happy with today’s mid-day postponement. Who can blame them?

The match was called off at 12:00pm after virtually no updates in the preceding 24 hours as to the state of the pitch, this despite heavy snow fall and temperatures as low as -6°c. The postponement came once the match official, Paul Tierney, arrived for the match.

The club’s response so far has been one that has blamed the referee – apparently the ‘majority of the pitch’ was soft and they envisaged the game to go ahead. This will be why Torquay fans had been told by the ticket office that no pitch inspection was to take place and the match would be on.

It would be fair enough if this was a genuine mistake by the club but unfortunately Crewe Alexandra have a history of late, botched postponements.

Last year saw a night game in February against Bristol Rovers postponed less than two hours before kick off due to a frozen pitch, a similar story can be found a few times in recent years – ask Man City and Stoke fans.

With only one League Two game actually beating the weather this afternoon it would seem that the club couldn’t do much more to get the game on; they covered the pitch but ultimately the temperatures won.

The lack of communication to both Crewe and Torquay fans however was poor. The only update given was through the official site on Friday afternoon who simply informed us the pitch had been covered for the Thursday and Friday night.

With the weather that the entire country has had you’d expect the club to provide a constant feed of updates, if only to keep Torquay fans at the other end of the country in the loop. You would also expect the club to have called in a match official from the local area to give the pitch a look early in the morning – if the majority of this division can do it, why can’t we?

Prior to making their four hour journey north some Torquay fans reported on the Torquay message board torquayfans.com that they had been assured by staff at Crewe that the game would be going ahead as the pitch was covered.

One member said: ‘When I spoke to them this morning they seemed to suggest that there wasn’t an ounce of doubt as they had the covers on. Not sure of the full details yet, but it did seem to me that of quarter to 10 Crewe hadn’t even checked what state the pitch was in. Very poor form on their part.’

Another added: ‘That is nothing short of a disgrace. Its time that the Football League stopped clubs treating fans with disdain. Crewe have shown an amazing arrogance over this starting at the top from their p***k of a manager Dario Gradi who seemed dismissive of the weather.’