This was the scene greeting groundstaff in 2006/07 as we were due to face Torquay United at home. Again courtesy of the club, the picture shows Sincil Bank under a huge amount of water. Fans from Bolton perhaps don’t realise how much work has gone into drainage since these days; waterlogged pitches used to be a real threat to the club.
In this instance, referee Danny McDermid actually got the game on and City won 1-0. It wasn’t a pretty affair though; Stevland Angus was sent off for a wild challenge and Mark Stallard’s goal after 25 minutes was one of the few bright spots in the affair.
Another reason we’ve had games called off in the past has been fog, believe it or not. We can all emember a foggy night where you can’t see one end of the pitch from the other, but there have been instances of the games being postponed. Our LDV Vans tie with Halifax Town in 2003/04 fell foul of the fog, the final picture the club provided me back then showing just how murky it was that night.
We lost the rearranged game 1-0, Kevin Sandwith getting the goal for them.
So, what of foggy matches that survived? My Dad would tell you about a game with Orient in 86/87 I think (or it might be Wolves) which i recall him telling me about during my first ever trip to Sincil Bank; it was part of the mystique. For me, and a legion of others, it’s hard to look beyond Oldham in the FA Cup, where it became impossible to follow the game properly. Had that fog set in half an hour earlier, I firmly believe the game would have been called off.
As for the snow, there’s plenty of instances of us losing games to the white stuff, as well as one or two we managed to get on despite late inspections. I recall a game with Brentford that I think only just survived, but others have not been so lucky. There’s something very beautiful about a game played in the snow, but if the Bank loos like it did below, then the game won’t go on.
However, another game that did survive the snow was against Grimsby the season before last. I got the kick-off time wrong that day and we turned up an hour early, Fe selling A City United in the snow before the game. We won 3-1 but it produced some memorable scenes, didn’t it?
To be fair, it had eased by the time this picture was taken, but at one point the game definitely looked like being off.
What it is important to remember is that any postponement is not the club’s fault; the match officials call the game off. Unless you’re cancelling it on social media because you don’t want another 5-0 thrashing, then it’s the club’s fault……
Smashing article as usual, Gary. I was on the train from Hastings yesterday and reached Peterborough before the game was called off. I am told that it had rained heavily all night and the weather forecast meant that things could only get worse. I’ll wager this game could have been called off much earlier. Fewer frustrated away fans would have been in the city and yours truly would have saved sixty quid!
With my senile memory I can only remember 1 abandoned and 1 postponed.
Home to Crystal Palace in December 76 was abandoned after about 60 mins due to fog and a Boxing Day fixture postponed. Can’t remember who against or the year, around late 90’s early 00’s
I went to Palace game Steve, pretty sure it was snowing that got it abandoned.
I had come up from Tidworth with a Army mate who was a Palace fan.
I remember a home game with York being abandoned at half time because of fog in the early 1990s.