Preventing a farce

You could argue that a "farce" was already the case by the time the JPT game between Bury and Preston was already called off? This is because the referee had initially given the go ahead for the game to be played only to call it off half an hour later.

Referee Gary Sutton, as he told The Bury Times, "agonised" over his decision before being forced to call off the game at 6.45pm when the heavens opened, having given it all the all clear at 6.15.

Preventing a farce was his reasoning: 'I came from Lincolnshire, I didn't come here to spoil somebody's evening.

'I'm a football lover as well and it probably would have made for a good cup-tie, the conditions. But ultimately I've really got to consider whether the safety was going to be there and I think it was going to end up being a farce.

'There were concerns, but we decided to put the game on and did team sheets at quarter to seven and that's when I got a knock on the door from the chief groundsman with a worried look on his face.

'It was really coming straight down and he was fighting a losing battle.'

The elements can't be helped but perhaps the game should have been called-off sooner? Not that it would have made much difference to the travelling fans, who will do this again on Tuesday 18th December instead now in a game that'll kick-off at 7.45pm.

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