Somewhere, the WPRA are laughing their little narrow-minded heads off…
As you probably now know, our game against Newcastle tomorrow is off due to the heavy rain.
Although calling it “heavy rain” is like describing a 14-car pile up as a “collision”.
Funnily enough, your editor woke up this morning (it’s my designated day off) and I had an idle thought about whether the game would be off.
I turned on Sky Sports News, and the massive headline was indeed that.
It’s only now that the actual damage is starting to appear. And, well, it doesn’t look too promising…
The video footage here really isn’t good, and the “Shock footage” headline might not be clickbait after all.
Unfortunately, it’s likely worse than you first think – to put it politely, the pitch is fucked.
Whether it collapsed due to the sheer amount of rain it had to deal with, or whether we tried to cut corners in construction, we won’t know for a good while.
The offices and club shop and museum are flooded, although the artifacts in the museum seem safe apparently.
But the pitch is the massive concern here. We’ll obviously need to (literally) wait for the water to subside, but those pictures make it look like the 9th at Wentworth.
Newcastle apparently offered to switch the game to St James’ Park, although logistics will likely scupper that for this week at least.
Though it’s not like they’ll play their first team.
It’s possible we could have to forfeit the fixture, which would be an utter shame, although I expect there’s a workaround which I’ll come to in a minute.
Looking ahead, you have to think both t’Stanley and Crewe next Tuesday will be off. Indeed, that’s probably a month we’ll be away from SW17 if those pictures are a guide.
I wouldn’t be surprised if we’re looking to play our home games at a different venue for the next however-long-it-takes.
The logistics for playing at, say, Stamford Bridge or Fulham may be tricky. Although don’t we “share” policing with Brentford?
After all, we played at QPR before we went to Plough Lane, and we’re lucky that there are a couple of stadia around that can happily host us against Crewe.
Hell, we might even go totally retro-90s and play Newcastle at Selhurst Park.
The biggest issue of the lot is how much it will cost us to repair the pitch and anything else.
I would guess that’s a six-figure sum, and I hope we’ve got insurance for it. Even if so, I expect there’s going to be some sort of fundraising (again) if there’s financial issues.
It’s not really the time right now to mention this, but with the first tangible movements over the whole 50+1 thing starting, this might have a profound effect on it.
Should we be struggling to afford the repairs for this, then minds get focused and pragmatism takes over.
You can’t plan for everything, but you can make your life a bit easier if you choose to.
That’s for later though. We’ve had deluges since we’ve returned home and Plough Lane has coped very well.
This is probably a once-in-thirty-years event that the whole PL planning took on board, and it reminds you that Mother Nature is truly in charge of everyone.
We’ll (literally) have to dry out before finding out what is next, although as I type at SW19 Towers it’s started raining heavily again.
One thing has become apparent already however – even our pitch now is better than some horror shows we’ve played on recently…