The deep freeze which has engulfed the UK over the course of the last week or so has wreaked havoc on the sporting calendar. While our English Lions were battling away to save the Third Test in sweltering Cape Town this week, the scene at home couldn’t have been more different with a raft of postponements leading to an imminent fixture pile-up across the Football League.
With only eight of the weekend’s games from England’s top four divisions surviving the cold snap, Jeff and the boys on Soccer Saturday will certainly be earning their corn! Thankfully Birmingham’s home game with Manchester United, which is live on ESPN, has not fallen foul of the weather so there will at least be some football action on the box this weekend.
But this enforced mid-season hiatus has added extra spice to the January transfer rumour mill. As we discussed last time out, there has already been plenty of transfer activity at the Daggers in 2010. The latest developments emerged on Thursday. Terry Harris warmed Daggers fans’ hearts when he admitted to the Barking & Dagenham Post that the club had been in discussions with Portsmouth over the possible return of fans’ favourite, Matt Ritchie. Harris was keen not to get too carried away though; Ritchie’s immediate future could go one of two ways. He may well be called into action if Portsmouth decide to offload their bigger names in an attempt to lessen their reported £3m monthly wage bill. Alternatively, Portsmouth may see Premier League survival as their only way to keep afloat long term, therefore making concessions with some of their fringe players in a desperate bid to keep hold of their prized assets.
Away from the rumour mill, the Daggers have not been in match action since an abject home defeat to Cheltenham Town on December 28th. It capped a miserable month for the Reds who also succumbed to lowly Northampton and promotion-chasing Aldershot. In truth, the loss of Stuart Thurgood, Will Antwi and for a time Josh Scott, together with Scotty’s abrupt departure to Peterborough, has pushed the squad to breaking point. Although no manager will admit to seeing a postponement as a good thing, it wouldn’t be surprising if one or two people at Victoria Road saw this as a perfect opportunity to regroup.
Matches have been taking place sporadically in League 2. While Rochdale continue their inexorable march to a first promotion since 1974, Notts County and Shrewsbury Town have also made positive strides to cement their play-off aspirations, pushing the Daggers down to sixth. Shrewsbury pulled off one of the results of the season, becoming only the second club to beat Chesterfield in their own back yard this term.
But while the current pause in matches gives us time to recuperate our beleaguered squad, there are also financial implications from the break. Notts County executive chairman Peter Trembling alluded to this recently: “Clearly, the postponement of three fixtures over the festive period has not helped the club’s cash flow and this is an area we are currently actively addressing.” Nobody coming through the turnstiles impacts other aspects of matchday revenue such as merchandise sales, thus exacerbating the already difficult financial situation many football clubs currently find themselves in.
Of course Daggers fans will have painful memories after the club lost out on a £150,000 windfall when the televised FA Cup third round replay with Charlton Athletic was postponed due to a frozen pitch in January 2001. Chairman Dave Andrews was quoted in The Telegraph at the time, saying: “It’s like winning the Lottery and losing the ticket.” The Daggers eventually bowed out 1-0 after extra time when the game was finally played on fourth round day.
And it’s not just football clubs who are feeling the pinch. Thankfully Torquay postponed Saturday’s match in good time, preventing any Daggers fans who may have been considering a last-minute jaunt to the South West from wasting their time and money. While all the white stuff is great fun, I’m personally hoping it clears soon with train tickets already booked up to Shrewsbury in a fortnight’s time and Lincoln a week later!
Enjoy the snow if you can but let’s hope we can get back to some proper football action soon!
