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Pitch inspection at 11.30 (ed. GAME OFF)

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  • [cite]Posted By: Billericay Dickie[/cite]Just returned home a completely wasted journey and I am thoroughly pissed off.
    Charlton should have made this decision either yesterday or at the latest 8.00am this morning.

    What was the club waiting for a high pressure and a warm front to come up from Saudi Arabia and melt the ice!

    Don't you mean the referee? It was his decison.
  • I wonder if the game would have been played if it had been a conventional 3pm kick off?
  • [cite]Posted By: Billericay Dickie[/cite]Just returned home a completely wasted journey and I am thoroughly pissed off.
    Charlton should have made this decision either yesterday or at the latest 8.00am this morning.

    What was the club waiting for a high pressure and a warm front to come up from Saudi Arabia and melt the ice!

    This was not a charlton decision ... blame d'urso
  • [cite]Posted By: Oggy Red[/cite]I wonder if the game would have been played if it had been a conventional 3pm kick off?

    What are you saying Oggy - blame Jesus?
    ;o)
  • Send D'Urso the corporate, stewarding and staff wage bill
  • [cite]Posted By: Choice[/cite]Send D'Urso the corporate, stewarding and staff wage bill

    Do charlton have insurance for these situations? Would seem sensible.
  • Listen (from an ex ref myself) if someone with little power influence and status is gifted the opportunity to ruin the day for 20.000 people they're gonna take it. Power is very seductive and tempting to use. In addition the decision can be couched in the most honeyed and sensitive terms (difficult decision...aware of the consequences...have to consider....big responsibility) but deep down there is the whoop of triumph that the decision maker has that amount of sheer power to p*ss everybody off.
    It will cost us a lot of money that decision.
  • edited December 2010
    [cite]Posted By: stonemuse[/cite]
    [cite aria-level=0 aria-posinset=0 aria-setsize=0]Posted By: Choice[/cite]Send D'Urso the corporate, stewarding and staff wage bill

    Do charlton have insurance for these situations? Would seem sensible.

    They never used to have, I asked the question at an AGM once, shortly after the West Ham game got called off due to a water logged pitch on New Years Day about 5/6 years ago.
  • [cite]Posted By: Off_it[/cite]
    [cite]Posted By: Oggy Red[/cite]I wonder if the game would have been played if it had been a conventional 3pm kick off?

    What are you saying Oggy - blame Jesus?
    ;o)

    Blame Jesus? Christ, no.

    Just suggesting the early 1pm ko has worked against getting the game on.
    A normal 3pm kick off may have allowed the pitch to improve further, enabling the game to be played.
  • [cite]Posted By: stonemuse[/cite]
    [cite]Posted By: Choice[/cite]Send D'Urso the corporate, stewarding and staff wage bill

    Do charlton have insurance for these situations? Would seem sensible.

    Hmm, but not so sensible paying the premiums when you're desperately trying to cut costs and we've had a series of very mild winters - which was the case up until last year.

    Good queston though, but my guess is "probably not".
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  • P.S. I am mightily annoyed, heard about it in the chip shop, and I only travelled with my group of four from Lee, goodness knows how the long journey people must be feeling.
  • Disappointed was halfway there when it was called. Luck had it that I checked!

    At least it allows all the "T" word stuff to crack on!
  • My mate's family are Southampton fans who live down in Devon, Totnes. They left at 6am this morning, I met them in the Pickwick at !2.05, and the game was called off 10 minutes later. long day for them... Such a joke that the pitch inspection was at 11.30. Why not 9.30 or 10.00?
  • Thanks everybody, I suppose your right, working hard on Thursday did at least give it a chance to be played, Ill re-pat my back again lol. Oh well, lets see if Wednesday nights game will be on?!
  • Steve Kavanagh clearly not a happy man, have a look at the OS.

    I'm sorry but if the management and players were happy to play then D'Urso is a prick.

    Not always easy to tell but think there would have been a decent crowd there today, pub was busy, lots of supporters milling about.
  • CAFCofficial Charlton Athletic
    Paddy Powell's just summoned me to inspect pitch and take some pics at what would have been kick-off time. He's absolutely fuming (MW) #cafc
  • edited December 2010
    TBH as soon as they said D'Urso was conducting a ptich inspection I thought it might be bad news.

    He's a tit
  • A furious Kavanagh said: “With the players being here, the fans coming along and the effort of the fans, the staff, the groundsman is phenomenal.

    “In my opinion that was playable. I’m not a referee and the referee has to have concerns about the players’ fitness but both managers came to me afterwards and said ‘can we train on the pitch now?’ “To me that says both managers and the players are happy to play on that.

    “There was one area of the pitch he’s called it off on. Ten minutes before that we had a blower on that area of the pitch but he said he had a concern about the other touchline so naturally we took the blower away to work on the other touchline.

    “He came out, ignored the touchline we were working on that he was concerned with and went straight to the area of the ground where the blower had been working and called it off on that area.

    “I’m sorry but I’m disappointed for all the fans, both teams, the staff and all the supporters who came there to try and get this game on.

    “In everyone’s view apart from the referee that was playable and I don’t understand why we’ve not played.”

    Southampton Daily Echo
  • "Charlton managing director Stephen Kavanagh said Charlton’s pitch would have been playable had it not been for the actions of referee Andy D’Urso.

    The fuming Addicks official claimed that D’Urso told him he was concerned about one touchline where the linesman would be running down so his ground staff moved their warm air blower from the opposite corner of the ground.

    When D’Urso came out for his final pitch inspection at midday he headed straight for the area where the blower had been moved from and didn’t look at what he had previously said was his area of concern."

    "...both managers came to me afterwards and said ‘can we train on the pitch now?’ “To me that says both managers and the players are happy to play on that.

    “There was one area of the pitch he’s called it off on. Ten minutes before that we had a blower on that area of the pitch but he said he had a concern about the other touchline so naturally we took the blower away to work on the other touchline.

    “He came out, ignored the touchline we were working on that he was concerned with and went straight to the area of the ground where the blower had been working and called it off on that area."
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  • As re my earlier posting: D'Urso got there mid morning hence the very late inspection at 11.30. Having travelled to Charlton on Friday to do a match inspection.

    Yes, the frost in Bexley was very harsh last night, and this morning the ground was rock solid, and still compact ice on the side roads as I took the dog for an early walk, and had a concern, hence why i logged on to the website at Charlton 10ish...... not a posting about a pitch inspection. First I heard about it was on here circa 11ish......

    This site crashed several times, after I got a call from someone coming up from the coast at 9.55. Okay the ref decides! but why, why leave it so late ! if the ground was frozen, then it really was going to be that way, for this match. The sun has been out in Bexley, all morning so it is not going to thaw out, any more than it could have seeing the cold front we are in! BBC claimed this on the weather programme at 7am!

    Sorry, down to D'urso and his colleagues!. Charlton did everything it could do in the circumstances, and fair play to both sides that they publicly declared that!
  • Got to admit, as soon as I saw the words "Andy D'Urso", I also thought the match would be in trouble. Dumb to have done it so late, especially with no trains/Tubes.

    I just hope the rearranged match gets on the telly, to compensate the club for the cash they'll have lost today.
  • Absolute joke to call it off so late. The managers always want to the game to be played, but the reaction from other areas of the club says a lot.

    D'Urso would still have ruined the game even if it had gone ahead. At least he can't cost us any points today, and fingers crossed we won't get him reffing the re-arranged game.
  • Based on what Steve Kavanagh says, perhaps there should be an investigation into D'Urso's actions today.
  • Yes. Why didnt he get there earlier this morning and was he in a hurry to get back to his family?

    Does he normally ref league one fixtures and does he live locally?
  • When you consider the fans from uni, working
    away, back home visiting family for Christmas able to
    make the game but not the replay , alone will cost us much in ticket revenue.
    Christmas money wont be spent in the club shop today, more likely to be spent elsewhere now.

    All that hard work from the fans and club, down the pan thanks to that wanker ref who clearly wanted to get home early.
  • edited December 2010
    Just got back home and totallly bloody furious. Thanks Andy D'Urso for ruining our entire family's Boxing Day.

    The whole family went and most of them won't be able to come to any rescheduled date. Can I get the money back on several tkts which will now go unused?

    Three days ago I said on here that I doubted the game would go ahead as the Met Office was predicting minus 5 in SE7 for last night, and that we had a contingency plan for the family to go for a walk across the Ashdown Forest.

    But I believed the club's insistence that it would be OK and looked on the web-site prior to leaving at 11am and the only message was from Xmas Eve , expressing confidence it was on.

    So what changed? Why could it not have been called off at 11am instead of at noon? That would at least have allowed us to have our walk across the forest. Instead, we've driven 60 something miles for nothing and got back home with little more than an hour's daylight left. Entire day ruined.

    Absolutely pathetic.
  • Could he not have simply moved the linesman for that area to the other side of the pitch?
  • [cite]Posted By: BlackForestReds[/cite]Could he not have simply moved the linesman for that area to the other side of the pitch?

    Rumour earlier was that the lino wasn't prepared to run the other side of the pitch. Wondered if he thought of using the fourth official instead?
  • It's another example of how far too much power is given to refs. They need to be reminded that they too only have a job thanks to us, the paying customers (and I dont mean Sky customers).
    D'Urso should have made himself available to the press to explain himself to us.
    You should have seen the conditions when Sparta Prague's game with CSKA Moscow went ahead earlier this month. And that was a night match. And the interesting thing was that they emphasised how a stadium can enjoy a temperature 10-12 degreess higher than outside once it fills up. Does D'Urso even know that?
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