Dumbarton vs Stirling Albion

[TheWestStand]

13 hours ago, headthebaw said:

And yet someone at Dumbarton FC contacted the SPFL and requested an inspection

And no contact was made to SAFC. All club officials, players and backroom staff all found out via social media. 

 

The above were all present at the pitch inspection and both from Dumbarton and SAFC wanted and we're happy for the game to be played. 

 

The main reason for the call off was the referee's concern for player safety on the area's that had sand down on them. 

[Jan Vojáček]

36 minutes ago, TheWestStand said:

And no contact was made to SAFC. All club officials, players and backroom staff all found out via social media. 

The main reason for the call off was the referee's concern for player safety on the area's that had sand down on them. 

Just on this point, obviously someone should've given them a bell out of courtesy. But would it have made any difference? Would any Albion players have not turned up or would the team bus (if you ran one) have waited in a service station until a decision was made?

I was on the pitch about quarter to 12 and didn't think the game had much of a chance. High tide was at 15:30 and the water level was really high. The pitch clearing volunteers pumped 350lt of water from it in just over an hour, but I was pretty dismayed to see the sand getting chucked around. On the second point, I'd rather we accepted the game was off and didn't damage the park for future matches then potentially leave it looking this again (which was considered playable and ultimately played a huge part in us losing that game...!)

Spoiler

 

 

[cedrick1]

Clearly there had been a fair amount of rainfall on Friday night and as soon as I heard there was an inspection I feared the worst.

I agree with Jan that looking at park in long term probably better this was off as what would have park been left looking like. 

I do feel that info was slow to come out and don’t get why Stirling wouldn’t have been kept up to speed 

[O'Kelly Isley III]

Can I ask, who gave the instruction to spread sand on a soggy pitch ?

[Dumbarton Rock]

15 hours ago, BallochSonsFan said:

Photo is a bit misleading.

There wasn't as much sand as it looks in that picture. It was getting spread out and wouldn't have been that bad had the game gone ahead and the sand had been moved across the wettest part of the pitch. The ref also looked to test the sanded area closest to the far side line. At one point there was 11 of us trying to get the worst areas sorted. That image looks to have been taken after the game had been called off and most of us had gone home.

Park would have been playable by 3pm. Absolutely no doubt. Ref made a very cautious decision.

M8 getting 11 helpers is brilliant, but I'm curious have any of you guys actually been shown how to fork that pitch so it instantly starts draining. The reason I ask is when I started down there I was forking away and getting nowhere until I got shown how to do it properly and it made some difference, you see it draining away in front of you. Looking at that picture I'd guess 11 guys with forks would have cleared that in half an hour without the need for the pesky sand. I told the groundsman at the very start I would show him stuff or he could call me if he had a problem but he wasn't interested. Cheers. 

[WC Boggs]

The weather forecast for next weekend in Scotland does not look good.  Snow predicted for Friday, followed by a weekend deep freeze with predictions of  as low as -9 C. Brrrrrrr.

[pleslie99]

9 hours ago, TheWestStand said:

The above were all present at the pitch inspection and both from Dumbarton and SAFC wanted and we're happy for the game to be played. 

It makes zero odds if everyone and their auntie wanted to play the game, the ref deemed it unplayable so it's unplayable. No point in either side greeting about it. The weather is to blame or our groundsman for not being there earlier but not anyone else at the club or the ref! 

[The Moonster]

35 minutes ago, pleslie99 said:

It makes zero odds if everyone and their auntie wanted to play the game, the ref deemed it unplayable so it's unplayable. No point in either side greeting about it. The weather is to blame or our groundsman for not being there earlier but not anyone else at the club or the ref! 

If the groundsman can't be there until 12 someone else at the club needs to take responsibility for this stuff, or ideally we employ a local groundsman who's able to attend earlier. The blame lies with the club whichever way you slice this. 

[Silverton End]

2 hours ago, The Moonster said:

If the groundsman can't be there until 12 someone else at the club needs to take responsibility for this stuff, or ideally we employ a local groundsman who's able to attend earlier. The blame lies with the club whichever way you slice this. 

We had an excellent Groundsman who lived 5 minutes up the road, but good old John Steele decided to employ an old golfing buddy who lives down in Ayrshire though.

 

[pleslie99]

2 hours ago, The Moonster said:

If the groundsman can't be there until 12 someone else at the club needs to take responsibility for this stuff, or ideally we employ a local groundsman who's able to attend earlier. The blame lies with the club whichever way you slice this. 

The groundsman has one job! The pitch is his responsibility, it falls to him to turn up early enough to sort it if it needs it. We can't seriously expect Antonia or anyone else to make a call on a pitch, it's his job, noone else's! Yes he's employed by the club so yes I suppose the blame lies with the club but with 1 individual in particular.

[Bring Back Paddy Flannery]

30 minutes ago, pleslie99 said:

The groundsman has one job! The pitch is his responsibility, it falls to him to turn up early enough to sort it if it needs it. We can't seriously expect Antonia or anyone else to make a call on a pitch, it's his job, noone else's! Yes he's employed by the club so yes I suppose the blame lies with the club but with 1 individual in particular.

If the club choose to employ a guy who can’t make it down until lunch time on matchdays the fault most definitely lies with them. If they want to persist with the current arrangement then it’s up to them to find someone who can at least make an informed assessment of the pitch at a reasonable hour pre match. There is always the potential that the pitch is fine on the Friday evening but worsens between then and lunch time on the Saturday. 

I did see you mention previously that the club felt the pitch was fine on the Friday night before the game - who made that call? 

[The Moonster]

9 hours ago, pleslie99 said:

The groundsman has one job! The pitch is his responsibility, it falls to him to turn up early enough to sort it if it needs it. We can't seriously expect Antonia or anyone else to make a call on a pitch, it's his job, noone else's! Yes he's employed by the club so yes I suppose the blame lies with the club but with 1 individual in particular.

I'm not talking about office staff here, our BOD need to take responsibility. I seriously hope they aren't just blaming the groundsman here. 

[Frank Quitely]

Does anyone know what happens with hospitality in situations like this?

[Bring Back Paddy Flannery]

1 hour ago, Frank Quitely said:

Does anyone know what happens with hospitality in situations like this?

Does the hospitality not start at half 12? Most of them would’ve been hawf scooped and baw deep in their featherblade beef by the time it got called off. Christ knows how they work that but there would need to be some sort of a refund.

On that note - does anyone know what happens with tickets purchased online? Are these automatically refunded or do you need to contact the club? 

[microdave]

Bump. Match rescheduled for Tuesday 7th March with a 1945 ko.

[microdave]

Bump. Probably the biggest game between the clubs since 13th May 1995. Excited and nervous in equal measure.

[TheVoiceofReason]

44 minutes ago, microdave said:

Bump. Probably the biggest game between the clubs since 13th May 1995. Excited and nervous in equal measure.

Ditto

[Binos]

Will be a bit colder

[BB_Bino]

Going to be a cracker, just a pity it’s fallen on a mid-week now and it’ll be less of an attendance 

[Bring Back Paddy Flannery]

This one could be in doubt due to the temperature. Hopefully all the Stirling fans can keep the heid if it’s called off again, there were some grown men spraying tears and snotters all over Twitter the last time.