It may be time for the FA to help non-League games survive the weather
I had hoped to be talking about two great games and six points in this week’s column – but we only saw half an hour of football.
Saturday’s game against Farnborough at Kingfield was postponed and then we had the match at Dorchester on Tuesday night abandoned after half an hour.
That could have been foreseen. We knew there would be inclement weather in the Dorchester area and that from about 6pm there would be heavy rain for about three hours.
We had done three hours’ travelling and obviously wanted to play but unfortunately the pitch became dangerous and they had to call it off.
We’ve lost five matches to the weather this season – we should be on our 26th match, not our 21st.
Unfortunately at this level, clubs don’t have the surfaces that can stand up to the rain we’ve had.
Perhaps some money could be released from the FA, in the form of grants, to improve the drainage, get games on and get clubs earning more revenue?
Perhaps the Conference could be the first level to try out a winter break? When February comes around the weather might be a bit better and the pitches will have had time to recover a bit.
It’s a massive debate, everyone will have an idea on what could be done about it.
The Conference is holding an emergency general meeting on 29 January, involving managers and chairmen, about bringing in artificial pitches.
I would imagine the majority of managers would be in favour of them – that doesn’t indicate which way I would vote, it’s just the feeling I get.
Hopefully we will get a game on on Saturday when we visit the league leaders Bromley.
Bromley are top for a reason. They’ve got very good players who have a very strong sense of belief and keep grinding out the results.
I watched the highlights of their game against Bath on the Bromley website and Bath had three or four shots cleared off the line, they missed a penalty and the keeper’s made some good saves. It almost looked like a Bath highlights reel – but they lost the game.
I speak to Mark Goldberg, Bromley’s manager, a lot. He’s done a terrific job this season and in his son Bradley – on loan from Dagenham – and Pierre-Joseph Dubois they’ve got the top two scorers in the division.
Bradley is having an excellent season although I’d like to see his goals-to-shots ratio because whenever I’ve seen him he shoots on sight! But it certainly helps when your strikers are firing.
No-one’s going to go to Bromley and just roll them over. We’ll have to raise our game but I go into every match aiming to win.
Bromley are going to lose games between now and the end of the season, it’s just a question of when. Hopefully it’ll be on Saturday.
On Tuesday we host Staines at Kingfield. Marcus Gayle’s got a good squad there. He keeps saying how young they are but they’ve matured a lot lately.
I know Marcus very well so it’ll be interesting to pit our wits against each other.
I brought a striker into the club this week in Ryan Blake. He’s got good movement, his work rate’s up there and he knows where the net is.
We’ve given him the opportunity, now it’s time for him – and the other players we’ve brought in – to take it.
We’ve got some great talent in our squad – they just have to believe they can push on to the next level.
Our performance in the FA Trophy against Barnet – when we lost 1-0 to a late goal – is proof we can compete against Conference National opposition when everyone’s playing well.
Right now, we have to focus on getting a win. We’ve been a bad run lately and it’s time we altered that.
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