Adam Dennehey looks at the problem that everyone involved in football has to contend with – the weather!
There’s snow problem like snowbusiness, like snowbusiness I know. Now I have always liked the snow. I have always been someone who has loved the winter. Yes it helped that I was born in November – more or less Winter – so always had my birthday to look forward to when the nights were getting colder and longer…
However now that I’m older and wiser (well I’ll let you be the judge of that!) I have to admit I don’t like the snow and rainy weather (we’ll chuck that in as well) anywhere near as half as I used to. What’s the reason I hear you ask?
Postponements.
Yes it’s that nasty P-word that no football fan likes to hear. The weather this time of year hits football not only right in the face but down low where it hurts and it’s ruthless in its approach. Nothing can stop the weather and when it’s mean there’s very little that can be done to save a game from being called off.
Of course postponements impact all sides. Lesser sides or struggling ones are often hit the most and very often they are unable to keep up to the demands of a fixture pile-up particularly at the back-end of a gruelling season.
When you’re a side at the bottom of the table, you need to get a bad defeat/performance out of your system as fast as possible so you can move on. This season, and I’m not one to make excuses, but Redbridge haven’t been helped by the timing of their postponed fixtures.
Yes the table doesn’t lie. We are not second from bottom for no reason. However Redbridge haven’t been helped by postponements this season. This has meant that our lads haven’t been able to go into some games after a bad performance and put things right.
Equally, after some good performances in defeats, we haven’t been able to go out there and build on them and immediately put some plans into action. On both times we’ve had to wait for fixtures, which due to other results now have a different back-story to them than they would have done previously.
Critics of our team this year could though say that we could well have lost those postponed fixtures that would have been played by now. I could understand that view given our set and manner of results this season.
Our away #169derby against local rivals Ilford at Cricklefields has now been postponed on three separate occasions (November 24th, December 12th, and January 16th). This game will be vitally important in terms of our season and I feel that had the game been played before the turn of the year that the way we were playing we would have won.
That win would given our lads so much confidence and who knows perhaps we could have picked up a few more points along the way. Equally though on a tough pitch at Cricklefields we could have lost.
Here’s to the weather improving soon for everyone’s sake. Our game on Tuesday night at home to Grays Athletic (a team I have a lot of time for given their history and their set of supporters) was called off which means our next league game now is the difficult task away to the league leaders, Maldon & Tiptree this coming weekend.
That game is one I’ve been looking forward to all for a while, although given Terry Spillane’s side’s outstanding record at home this season, perhaps its one game that our fans would like to see snowed off permanently. Here’s to an away win, if the bad weather stays away!
Thanks to Adam for this article. Let’s all hope the snow stops interrupting our season and ruining our Saturdays and Tuesdays! Follow Adam on twitter: @TheMotormen. The picture included is of Redbridge’s Oakside ground covered in snow, taken by Adam himself.
January 24, 2013 at 8:40 am
The major problem to me is the lack of cash flow. Not only payments to players and staff but external costs, rent, rates, VAT, insurance etc.