Do you know what the record is for the game which has been postponed most times before being played?

IIRC it involves one of the Inverness clubs in the early to mid 80s. I'm sure it was postponed at least a dozen times due to snow/frozen pitch etc before being played. Google hasn't been much help in finding it out.

a game between an Inverness team and Falkirk was postponed 20-odd times I think........

Inverness Thistle v Falkirk, 1978/9, was postponed on:

January 6, 13, 15, 16, 17, 18, 22, 23, 24, 25, 27, 29, 30, 31
February 1, 5, 6, 7, 8, 12, 13, 14, 15, 17, 19, 20, 21

but was played on Thursday February 22nd, with a 1.30 Kick Off, following 27 postponements.

27 postponements I didn't think it was quite as many as that. I remember that winter, that's when we had proper winters.

did a google for "Inverness Thistle" Falkirk postponed and this came up http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/2006/ma...knowledge.sport

According to it the game was postponed 29 times, and wasn't a record! Apparently the record is 33 postponements, Airdrie vs Stranraer in the 1962/63 season.

The figure of 29 is an oft-quoted mistake. On February 3rd and 10th Falkirk's League fixtures had priority - they actually played a League game on the 10th. The Cup tie was never actually scheduled for these dates.

My records for 62/3 show that the Airdrie v Stranraer game in 62/3 was postponed on:

Jan 12, 19, 21, 22, 23, 24, 26, 28, 29, 30 , 31
Feb 4, 5, 6, 7, 11, 12, 13, 14, 16, 18, 19, 20, 21, 25, 26, 27, 28
Mar 4, 5, 6, 7, 9

- making a total of 33.

I'll quote myself from another forum, as below. In the juniors there is only one chance a week in winter so the number of cancellations isn't that high.

"I came across a Scottish Junior Cup-tie in 1963-4 between Linlithgow Rose and Pumpherston Juniors which took 13 weeks to decide due to unplayable pitches and the match going to 3 games. Given that neither could play any other games during that period it had to contribute to fixture build-up. Nowadays I believe that three cancellations for an unplayable pitch loses the team its home advantage although I don't know what happens if the other team's pitch is also unplayable. Also Junior Cup ties are now decided after the second game as they used to go on indefinitely, though three games is the most I remember the Rose being involved in.

"In the tie I mentioned above, I believe the teams were idle for at least eight weeks because of perma-frost on the pitch and I'm pretty sure that they wouldn't have been the only teams affected by the weather. Of course with global warming we don't get the winters we used to get etc. etc."

Were the rules different? I thought Scottish Cup ties always had priority over league ties back then?

The rules haven't really changed that much.

Following the Saturday 7 days after the scheduled date of the round, Scottish League games did, and still do, take priority except on Saturday's scheduled for subsequent rounds of the Scottish Cup. Highland League games did not take priority - a Scottish Cup tie between two HL clubs would have been scheduled for all the intervening Saturdays.

Back then if a match was postponed or drawn it had to be replayed during the following midweek, unless the teams were 100 miles or more apart, in which case it went to the following Saturday. Thereafter, any draws or postponements meant it moved on to the subsequent Mondays, Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays, plus any Saturday's that were scheduled for subsequent rounds of the Cup.

The difference today is that the first re-arrangement must be within 10 days of the original date, and subsequent attempts are at 2-day intervals. Also, the 100-mile rule was scrapped and the 'following Saturday' option was made available in all the early rounds - now up to Round 3.

Tell me about it . Particularly if replays/postponed first ties have got lights, but don't use them...

I am sure that the winter in 1963 was especially harsh all over the UK so there are probably loads of other examples from that season...

The worst string of postponements I can personally recall was when we (Meadowbank) had Ross County up north in 1990-91. The game was scheduled Monday, Wednesday and Saturday for several weeks before it was eventually played and we pumped them 6-1.

The fixture pile up that resulted was horrific and we were playing two games a week for the last three months of the season.

What looked like being a decent season turned into a horrendous string of defeats as our part time players tired. Killie gubbed us 8-1 at home in amongst it.

Remember the infamous Inverness Thistle v Falkirk tie, every other day on Radio 2 sports bulletin's at the time stating the game had been cancelled again. What a winter we had that year, remember the North East of England came to a standstill for about three weeks and the Blyth Spartans v Wrexham FA Cup Fifth replay took about three weeks to get played, a breeze in the park compared with the Thistle v Falkirk tie.Must have been hellish was it frost or snow that kept it getting postponed.

Both frost and snow. It snowed very heavily in December / early January with an accumulation of about 18 inches. Temperatures then plummeted to about -10 for two or three weeks. Then when the temperatures rose the pitch was waterlogged.