Sunderland (A) - Game off

[BenReadingFC]

I've got a tcket for this but couldn't go due to work commitments. I know that I would have been livid at driving all that way for nothing, so feel sorry for our travelling army. What a waste of time and money. I've no doubt that this will now become a midweek fixture which will mean even fewer Reading in attendance for the rematch.

[Platypuss]

Depends how much rain they've had, drainage systems can only do so much in a set period of time. But it'd better have been one hell of a downpour.

Just heard BMcD on Talksport saying that it would not have been abandoned with that much rain at the Mad Stad, and that he thought there must be a problem with the (newly laid) pitch.

Yeah, like we've never had a game at he Madejski called off at half time due to rain or anything...

[RoyalBlue]

Depends how much rain they've had, drainage systems can only do so much in a set period of time. But it'd better have been one hell of a downpour.

Thankyou, a little bit of balance from someone. There has been non-stop torrential rain all morning. The drainage system at The SOL is probably as good as any in The PL but sometimes nothing can cope with what's coming down.
Ofcourse it's highly annoying and disappointing for Reading supporters who've made the journey up, as well as the thousands of Sunderland supporters who travelled long distances for the match. But please blame Mother Nature, not SAFC.

Might accept your argument if it was the middle of winter and there had already been loads of rain. How much rain have you had in the preceding week? And it doesn't look as though your pitch was exactly heaving with staff trying to do something about any standing water there might have been. Don't you have forks up there?

Seem to remember someone mentioning you have a new pitch this season. If so, it could prove that your drainage system isn't as good as any in the PL.

[RoyalBlue]

Unfortunately, with a sudden downpower, this hapens. We saw the same thing at the mad stad in the fa cup game v burnley a few seasons ago

But FA cup is played mid season when weather is worse and pitches have already deteriorated.

Depends how much rain they've had, drainage systems can only do so much in a set period of time. But it'd better have been one hell of a downpour.

Just heard BMcD on Talksport saying that it would not have been abandoned with that much rain at the Mad Stad, and that he thought there must be a problem with the (newly laid) pitch.

Yeah, like we've never had a game at he Madejski called off at half time due to rain or anything...

Another comment as wide of the mark as a Paul Brayson shot. The Leicester game was not played in August IIRC, furthermore I seem to remember that it had been raining a fair bit before the day of the game.

[RFCUK]

Got back an hour ago, but that was a waste of time and money. Feel for the guys who had an extra two hours to go on top of my journey (which was long enough).

It was wet, but not exactly chucking it down. As people have said above, Brian saying that there must be something with the drainage system..

Gotta say though, coming on to the M1 from Manchester, I only saw one RFC Car heading up there.. Any ticket news on how many we sold, and any probably reschedule date people are looking at?

[Christof]

Got to Sunderland (from Milton Keynes) about 1, found a pub, walked in to hear Sunderland fans talking about a pitch inspection, thought they were having a laugh. 40 minutes later, found out via the delights of Twitter that it was true (in fairness, it had been raining heavily for at least an hour driving up through Yorkshire). Cue general bemusement from all, but these things happen, not much else to say. It stopped raining shortly after 2.

Now sitting in a Durham hotel, planning to 'drink through the pain'. Wonder how they will refund me for that?

P.S. Spotted Paul Black and Wizard (not together) at Wetherby services

[Ian Royal]

Depends how much rain they've had, drainage systems can only do so much in a set period of time. But it'd better have been one hell of a downpour.

Thankyou, a little bit of balance from someone. There has been non-stop torrential rain all morning. The drainage system at The SOL is probably as good as any in The PL but sometimes nothing can cope with what's coming down.
Ofcourse it's highly annoying and disappointing for Reading supporters who've made the journey up, as well as the thousands of Sunderland supporters who travelled long distances for the match. But please blame Mother Nature, not SAFC.

Might accept your argument if it was the middle of winter and there had already been loads of rain. How much rain have you had in the preceding week? And it doesn't look as though your pitch was exactly heaving with staff trying to do something about any standing water there might have been. Don't you have forks up there?

Seem to remember someone mentioning you have a new pitch this season. If so, it could prove that your drainage system isn't as good as any in the PL.

What's the preceding week got to do with anything? If you get a prolonged heavy rainstorm of several hours, it doesn't matter whether it's rained every day for a week or not at all in the last month.

[Wizard]

Went to Middlesbrough v Palace instead, they said they haven't had any rain there at all. Strange how it goes.

No surprised the Riverside is always empty btw, £27 each is steep!

[Royal Rother]

Hardly a shock to see that most Reading fans' first reaction is to blame the club rather than the weather.

In Brian I trust. He's walked the pitch and said there is a problem with it, and that the game would have gone ahead at the Mad Stad.

Hardly a shock to see you having a go at our fans.

Yes, I think it was waterlogged.

[RoyalBlue]

Thankyou, a little bit of balance from someone. There has been non-stop torrential rain all morning. The drainage system at The SOL is probably as good as any in The PL but sometimes nothing can cope with what's coming down.
Ofcourse it's highly annoying and disappointing for Reading supporters who've made the journey up, as well as the thousands of Sunderland supporters who travelled long distances for the match. But please blame Mother Nature, not SAFC.

Might accept your argument if it was the middle of winter and there had already been loads of rain. How much rain have you had in the preceding week? And it doesn't look as though your pitch was exactly heaving with staff trying to do something about any standing water there might have been. Don't you have forks up there?

Seem to remember someone mentioning you have a new pitch this season. If so, it could prove that your drainage system isn't as good as any in the PL.

What's the preceding week got to do with anything? If you get a prolonged heavy rainstorm of several hours, it doesn't matter whether it's rained every day for a week or not at all in the last month.

Are you really that dumb? Of course it makes a difference. If the ground is already soaked it will take less rain to waterlog it. If it is relatively dry, there is more chance that even heavy prolonged rain can drain away (it also tends to help if you can get plenty of people trying to assist it to drain away). Equally too dry/compacted and heavy rain might lead to surface water.

Was Sunderland really the only place in the UK to get such heavy prolonged rain? (What's more, even you state that it would have had to have been one helluva downpour.) Other games survived. I suspect this season will show that they do have a problem with their drainage.

[wolsey]

Hardly a shock to see that most Reading fans' first reaction is to blame the club rather than the weather.

In Brian I trust. He's walked the pitch and said there is a problem with it, and that the game would have gone ahead at the Mad Stad.

Hardly a shock to see you having a go at our fans.

Yes, I think it was waterlogged.

But surely the point is that they have a "duty of care" (for the want of a better phrase) to the Premier League, the paying public,the Broadcasters to ensure that as far as possible the game is played at the appointed hour.

They knew that they had re-laid the pitch (with the attendant issues)
They have a full time, professional Grounds team (I assume their guy didn't turn up mid saturday morning having supervised the marking of the local Rec pitches)
They would have had access to a detailed local weather forecast (and so should have been able to have at least had a fair idea that Saturday might have been potentially a bit damp)

Nothing sinister, just lack of professionalism on part of the Sunderland.

[Ups and Downs]

Well I was planning on waking up at 2.50pm to try and get a stream for this online but didn't wake up until just now. With all he effort I put in I'm glad it was cancelled.

[Tony Le Mesmer]

Seem to recall Premier League Reading calling off a game due to waterlogging at 2.50 a few years back. Obviously thats different

[wolsey]

Seem to recall Premier League Reading calling off a game due to waterlogging at 2.50 a few years back. Obviously thats different

When? For a Premier League Match?

[Ian Royal]

What's the preceding week got to do with anything? If you get a prolonged heavy rainstorm of several hours, it doesn't matter whether it's rained every day for a week or not at all in the last month.

Are you really that dumb? Of course it makes a difference. If the ground is already soaked it will take less rain to waterlog it. If it is relatively dry, there is more chance that even heavy prolonged rain can drain away (it also tends to help if you can get plenty of people trying to assist it to drain away). Equally too dry/compacted and heavy rain might lead to surface water.

Was Sunderland really the only place in the UK to get such heavy prolonged rain? (What's more, even you state that it would have had to have been one helluva downpour.) Other games survived. I suspect this season will show that they do have a problem with their drainage.

No I'm not dumb, I happen to know what I'm talking about. If a drainage system has a capacity of dealing with x volume of rainfall, and there is x+y rainfall that drainage system will fail within a relatively short space of time, regardless of whether it has rained for weeks or not at all for months prior to the rainstorm causing the flooding.

This is how drainage systems work. If it has a design spec of a 1 in 30 year storm, it'll function up to around that level and then fail to keep the pitch playable after an hour or three of rainfall much in excess of that. At least for a while after the rain has stopped or significantly reduced.

Torrential rain also tends to be extremely localised.

[Tony Le Mesmer]

Seem to recall Premier League Reading calling off a game due to waterlogging at 2.50 a few years back. Obviously thats different

When? For a Premier League Match?

Burnley in the Cup. Our Premier League drainage system wasn't up to it.

[Ian Royal]

In Brian I trust. He's walked the pitch and said there is a problem with it, and that the game would have gone ahead at the Mad Stad.

Hardly a shock to see you having a go at our fans.

Yes, I think it was waterlogged.

But surely the point is that they have a "duty of care" (for the want of a better phrase) to the Premier League, the paying public,the Broadcasters to ensure that as far as possible the game is played at the appointed hour.

They knew that they had re-laid the pitch (with the attendant issues)
They have a full time, professional Grounds team (I assume their guy didn't turn up mid saturday morning having supervised the marking of the local Rec pitches)
They would have had access to a detailed local weather forecast (and so should have been able to have at least had a fair idea that Saturday might have been potentially a bit damp)

Nothing sinister, just lack of professionalism on part of the Sunderland.

weather reports are reknowned for their reliability. And there is a massive difference between "a bit damp" and prolonged torrential rainfall.

What exactly do you expect them to do? Get the stewards to bail water off the pitch with buckets?

I say again, if there was a big problem with Sunderland's drainage system they'd have games called off all the time.

[wolsey]

Ian

I would suggest that local, short term Weather Forecasts are probably very reliable nowadays.

So are we assuming that the sudden heavy rainfall on Saturday morning was the sole reason postponement?

Or was it that the drainage system (or more likely the immature pitch structure) was struggling before then and should have been protected by the Ground Staff?

Or are ground conditions just something that we can't do anything about?


Oh..and "a bit damp" - do you not know what irony is?

"Yes, like goldy and silvery but made of iron"

[Platypuss]

no game next week. looking like we will be bottom before we play again.

Have you seen Southampton's next couple of games?

[URZZZZZZZZ]

I've just got back and I'm annoyed.

Here are my thoughts:

Half one was when we first heard murmurings that it may get called off. Inexplicably late. Surely Sunderland should have foreseen the weather and taken then necessary precautions. Adam Johnson should not be allowed to play in the rearranged fixture, although in all likelihood he will and will make a telling contribution (like Piquionne did for Donny last season).

oxf*rd off Sunderland