Back from the game (!)

[RoyalBlue]

it was just bad timing really 90 mins of hard rain like that had nowhere to go, had it happened an hour earlier, or an hour later things might have been ok.

Pompy had rain during the game, but stayed playable, as the match finished prior to it becoming unplayable.

PS something similar happened at top ground Watford last week as well.

And what do the two grounds have in common?

Fat rugger buggers messing up their pitches!

[Stranded]

As I said earlier about Mick Goodings radio comments. Definitely not the right thing to say.

Pitch NOT playable. Who wants to see OUR players slipping and sliding about in a mudbath. Waste of time and effort. And not good to watch. Few laughs maybe, but then......

Anyone else ship a few sock fulls of water ???????

Well it's not like the club treats the tournament as anything other than a big joke, so why not?

Yep, would have been great fun as Convey re-injures his knee as he gets stuck in the mud.

[ScottishRoyal]

Regardless of the postponement, £20 for a game where virtually an entire reserve team was being played is a disgrace. Reserve games are normally about £3 aren't they?

I've got a mate who's a Bristol Rovers fan and he suggested we go to a new ground. Between us the only ground we'd not visited in the midlands / close north was Birmingham City so we thought about going to that bu t didn't in the end as they were charging £28.50. Steve Bruce even alluded to the effects of this on Match of the Day.

[shadesrwrf]

Regardless of the postponement, £20 for a game where virtually an entire reserve team was being played is a disgrace. Reserve games are normally about £3 aren't they?

Reserve games don't usually hold quite the same importance. But I agree £20 is a lot of money to see any football game, let alone one of this nature.

[Rich@Eaststand]

Was the pitch really worse than at West Ham away earlier in the season? I seriously thought that game would be off or abandoned too.

Yes it was.

[doylefan]

Was the pitch really worse than at West Ham away earlier in the season? I seriously thought that game would be off or abandoned too.

i was the same as u the pitch at the west ham game was nightmare and thought that the game was going to be called off. yesterday though, our pitch looked a state.

LI game also called of today as playing conditions still not great and to give the pitch a chance to recover for tuesdays game

[Amongst the sheep]

What could go wrong?

These were my thoughts at half time in the West Ham game lat week. The heavens opened at half time surely not going to get waterlogged off is it? No of course not I am being paranoid!

[Super_horns]

So you know how we felt last weekend...although our match had passed half time.

It was £18 for us yesterday because I understand the FA demand that FA cup ties have ticket prices over £15 for some reason?

[Royal Lady]

Ours should have been £16 then. I'm sure I read somewhere that in the event of a replay the price at Burnley was less than £20. I may, however, have been dreaming.

[RoyalBlue]

...get a broom or pump the water out of the centre circle as the rest was playable!

Not true, a 30m stretch front of the East Stand was inches under water as was the south stand goalmouth. Wouldn't have been playable for a good hour MINIMUM. As it was still tipping it down at 3 the ref had no option.


Would have been nice if they could have called it of earlier, however at 1400 the pitch was pretty playable and the heavy rain between 14oo and 15oo really finished it off.

I was sat in the West and it seemed fine - even the goal mouth by the South Stand. Either way, all of these areas could have been sorted if the ground staff weren't forking around like a bunch of idiots. If they'd rolled the pitch, broomed it or pumped the water off then it wouldn't have been a problem - I'd say 75% of the pitch was easily playable, possibly even more.

There was standing water over large areas of the pitch! it takes more than a bit of forking to sort that, especially when it was still raining. If you think they were ever going to play on that you're nuts

EDIT PS pumped it off? with what??? the industrial pump that is just lying around under the stand?

If they'd broomed the water from the middle of the pitch or pumped it like the Southampton game which was delayed the other week, the game would have been played. As it is, the referee got it wrong and our ground staff disgraced themselves.

Do our groundstaff have one of those big sponge roller thingys that they have at the cricket? Because these are very quick at removing surface water and brushing only succeeds in ripping up all the grass.

Oh dear, a little 'technical' explanation for the would be grounds staff who appear to be springing up on HNA.

Football is largely played in the winter months. Cricket is played exclusively in the summer. It rains an awful lot more in the winter than it does in the summer. Therefore, during the winter the water has penetrated the top surface and the soil is usually wet down to a significant depth. In the summer the soil tends to be bone dry.

When it rains in the summer the water can't easily penetrate the top surface and therefore tends to sit in pools on the top. The upside is that this makes it relatively easy to clear with a big spongy thing or pump etc. Once that is done the playing surface is usually in reasonably good nick and any remaining surface moisture tends to evaporate pretty quickly.

It's quite different in the winter. They don't refer to waterlogged pitches for nothing! Eeven if you get the surface water off, the top levels are usually sodden and would soon cut up into a lovely slippery mud bath/slush. Not only would this make the pitch dangerous/unplayable but it would also mean a lot of damage could be caused to what grass that is there.

I believe The reason you seen the grounds staff using forks is to try to open up the top surface a bit more in an attempt to get the water to drain away a bit more from both the surface and the upper layers of soil.

[RoyalBlue]

Ours should have been £16 then. I'm sure I read somewhere that in the event of a replay the price at Burnley was less than £20. I may, however, have been dreaming.

No you weren't. They have been published as being £18, which tends to make a mockery of the argument advance by some on here that Burnley were responsible for insisting we set our prices at £20.

Also, I don't think the FA stipulations apply to children/concessions - I believe QPR were charging £6 for kids yesterday.

[Dirk Gently]

Ours should have been £16 then. I'm sure I read somewhere that in the event of a replay the price at Burnley was less than £20. I may, however, have been dreaming.

No you weren't. They have been published as being £18, which tends to make a mockery of the argument advance by some on here that Burnley were responsible for insisting we set our prices at £20.

Not necessarily. Perhaps it means that we were more prepared to reduce prices than Burnley.

Burnley's average home attendence is about 12k whilst ours is about 24K, so potentailly they have a lot more to gain by keeping MadStad prices high. Similarly, they know we'd take a lot more away than they would, so they'd be happy to reduce home prices because they know the extra away attendence would make up the reduction.

[orange]

Pretty hard for the fans, especially the burnley fans who are going to have to make the same long trip on tuesday and also for the burnley team. The silver lining is the extra recovery time for kitson and convey and probably a lot mmore chance of playing without huge risk of injury.

[glass half full]

Pretty hard for the fans, especially the burnley fans who are going to have to make the same long trip on tuesday and also for the burnley team. The silver lining is the extra recovery time for kitson and convey and probably a lot mmore chance of playing without huge risk of injury.

On this subject, Jon Goodman's piece in the Burnley programme about individual players' different physical responses and recovery times after matches made fascinating reading, I thought. Anyone else agree?

[Tilehurst Mike]

Took one look at the pitch when I arrived at 2.30 and knew the match would be called off...............it was unplayable...................end of.

If I'm p*ssed of about anything it's that I heard nothing about the match being in jeopardy until the tannoy announcement was made five minutes before kick off.

A Barnet supporting friend checked their clubs website at 1.30, knew the game was off and, therefore, didn't get drenched like 1000's of Reading fans.

IMHO, the Mad Stad pitch must have been beyond saving by at least 2 o'clock and many of us could have been saved a wasted, very wet, journey.

At least like me a loyal Royal you bothered to turn up. 12000 odd for the third round of the cup is a pathetic turn out, raining or not. Just goes to show the plastics and half price season ticket brigade have no loyalty to the club at all--just glory hunters. Just hope we don't do a sheff utd on Tuesday with the 'weakened' team we are likely to field.

[AthleticoSpizz]

Took one look at the pitch when I arrived at 2.30 and knew the match would be called off...............it was unplayable...................end of.

If I'm p*ssed of about anything it's that I heard nothing about the match being in jeopardy until the tannoy announcement was made five minutes before kick off.

A Barnet supporting friend checked their clubs website at 1.30, knew the game was off and, therefore, didn't get drenched like 1000's of Reading fans.

IMHO, the Mad Stad pitch must have been beyond saving by at least 2 o'clock and many of us could have been saved a wasted, very wet, journey.

At least like me a loyal Royal you bothered to turn up. 12000 odd for the third round of the cup is a pathetic turn out, raining or not. Just goes to show the plastics and half price season ticket brigade have no loyalty to the club at all--just glory hunters. Just hope we don't do a sheff utd on Tuesday with the 'weakened' team we are likely to field.

BUUUUUUULLLLLLLLSHHHHHHHHHHHHHH1TTTTTTTTTT!

Some folk have simply run out of money

[brendywendy]

it wasnt that weak a team to be fair, thought it looked pretty strong

and what the oxf*rd is a half price season ticket and can i have one please

shut up about plastics and go an support wycombe or summink, do you want a full ground or would you be happier with just the 13000 die hards coming every week

[Rev Algenon Stickleback H]

Drainage must be very poor from that pitch, it's not like it hammered down all day.

Isn't the pitch actually below ground surface level?

The sub-soil drainage will be able to cope with a fair bit, but after a while it will just get overwhelmed.

you haven't noticed that the stadium sits on top of a man-made hill by any chance?

[Platypuss]

Ours should have been £16 then. I'm sure I read somewhere that in the event of a replay the price at Burnley was less than £20. I may, however, have been dreaming.

No you weren't. They have been published as being £18, which tends to make a mockery of the argument advance by some on here that Burnley were responsible for insisting we set our prices at £20.

No it doesn't: Burnley's prices for any replay are EXACTLY the same as their league prices for away sides.

[West Stand Man]

i say kick out the Irish.we would not have this problem if they didn't f*** up the pitch

I say you are talking nonsense, or are Spacey in disguise.

I'd kick them out long term, although it doesn't make financial sense at the moment. Maybe if we're established in the Premiership and have extended the stadium, along with possibly playing in Europe in years to come, we can kick them out as they ruin the pitch and I can't bloody stand rugby - it's for fat people who lacked the skills to play football. It sums it up when the world cup was won by one player who could actually kick a ball, whereas our national team are crap without him. Bloody stupid sport.

Royalee in 'crap bigotted announcements' shock again.