Roots Hall in all it's glory; just in case you've forgotten what it looks like
The official site was telling us soon after the decision was taken to postpone Saturday afternoon's game against Wycombe Wanderers that all had been done to let the game go-ahead.
Pitch covers deployed all week, 'two or three levels thick in some places', pitch been monitored, stadium manager in at 1am, (1am!), pitch playable then, those bastard tempatures started to drop though, just aftre he left it seems!
S24 would have gladly sent him the forecast that clearly stated Southend would drop to minus 4 overnight and never get above minus one on the day of the game.
www.southendunited.co.uk said: 'We know it's extremely disappointing for all our supporters and players, as it is for ourselves as the Managemnet wished to maintinn the momentum that we obtained with the win on Tuesday night.'
Fair enough, but in front of a couple of thousand frozen supporters, the week before Christmas remember, a half-fit Southend team slipping and sliding all over the place.
The safety of the fans has to take priority, the transport system was all over the place, literally in some cases, exiled Shrimpers might have got to Roots hall but would have struggled to get back, the same day anyway!
Nothing to explain guys, look at the one fixture that went ahead in the bottom two divisions, I'm sure the travelling Sheffield Wednesday fans would have loved for their game to have followed the rest of the UK and get called off, they lost 5-1! Wonder what time the Owls coaches got back!
No, this was a match that only those Shrimpers reaching footy cold turkey would have wanted to take place, probably a few hundred I accept, and then I'm not sure they would have enjoyed it if it had gone ahead. The pub was far warmer lads.
But don't worry; 'Thankfully the new stadium will have under soil heating preventing a postponement because of a frozen pitch in the future.'
So that's all right then for the big game against (fill in on how confident you are in what division we're be playing in) on Boxing Day 2020.
The Narnia v Shrimpers fixture was played, Uncle Ron seen talking to snow queen
Then again, now I've put you in a good mood, there's no guarantee we'll play the two fixtures over the Christmas holiday, Barnet at home next Saturday and Crewe away on the following Bank Holiday Tuesday, as the big chill is expected to just keep on coming, possibily into the early new year as well!
Anybody booked advance rail fares or a nice b&b, start getting nervous.
The latest weather outlook here:
http://uk.weather.com/weather/10day-Southend-on-Sea-UKXX1314
http://uk.weather.com/weather/10day-Crewe-UKXX0228