Waterlogged pitches

By dw (legacy user)30/1/2014 23:14Thu Jan 30 23:14:07 2014

Views: 5061

There was some debate on both the Billericay website and forum about waterlogged pitches prior to last Tuesday's match. Had either club expressed doubts the referee would have called it off shortly before kick-off as I understand it. There was a boggy segment of the pitch near one corner flag, true, but 90% of the pitch played very well. Back in the 60s 70s and 80s it would have been laughable to even consider a postponement.

Referees have to abide by strict FA guidelines. Reading the Middlesex guidelines for example, and put simply, if the ball does not roll or bounce properly then the match has to be postponed. Some latitude is allowed depending where the problem area is.

With 46 league games to play in total this year, let's hope that when the present awful weather abates, the powers that be allow referees to use a bit more common sense.

As for Maidstone….

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FA Guidelines for Referees

By alan ainsworth (legacy user)31/1/2014 13:33Fri Jan 31 13:33:56 2014In response to Waterlogged pitchesTop of thread

Views: 4561

Referees don't have to abide by FA guidelines.
They may even get away with being liberal at this level.
Applying common sense might be regarded as a tad subversive in the Corridors of Power, though.
In the days when I used to watch 100+ professional games a season, comfortably the best referee in the Football League was Terry Heilbron. He appeared on the Football league list, as if by magic, when he was the wrong side of forty. In a brief career, he seemed to get an almost farcical number of play-off finals and high-profile league games. He even got the League Cup final. However, the grapevine suggested he occasionally picked-up some comical assessors' marks, due to his reluctance to flash cards and refusal to play to some of the more pedantic rules. Somebody up there liked him, but he didn't get to the Premier League list and never got a remotely decent FA Cup appointment. Someone told me he became an assessor after he retired, which is ridiculous.

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