Key news and reports: WEEKEND 19/20 DECEMBER
EVERY SINGLE GAME ON THE FYLDE COAST FROZEN OFF
The Christmas break came a week early as far as far as local youth and amateur football was concerned. The final set of fixtures this weekend was supposed to be the last until the New Year but as it turned out, the previous weekend was the final time that teams were in action in 2009. November was the wettest month on record and with the rain continuing into December as well this 5-week spell of prolonged heavy showers caused dozens of games to be postponed due to waterlogged pitches. However the weather changed dramatically during mid-December and for several days leading up to this weekend the rain had disappeared but temperatures had plunged. On several nights it dropped to -4C, it hardly rose above freezing point during the day either and we even had a dusting of snow on one evening later in the week. By weekend pitches had become frozen solid and totally unfit for playing on. As it happened only two YMCA should have been in action this weekend, our Under 10s on the Saturday and the Under 15s on the Sunday, both at home, but even the Seafield Rd pitches were like concrete and far too dangerous for playing games on. Two huge pools of water formed near to the No.1 pitch which was something I had never seen before at our ground. Even Blackpool’s Championship League game against West Brom fell victim to the weather when the referee postponed the game after a 10.00am pitch inspection at Bloomfield Rd. We then woke up on Monday morning to find a couple of inches of snow lying on the ground all over the Fylde Coast which caused huge problems for people driving to work or for those doing their Christmas shopping, although it was brilliant for the kids on the first day of their Christmas school holidays. This just goes to show though how unpredictable our weather can be and how it can change from one extreme to another within a short space of time and even before the turn of the year a huge backlog of games had already accumulated in all local leagues creating massive headaches for fixtures secretaries.
