Elmore V Torquay St Luke's Cup 31st March 2009

We spoke to the Ref, who said it was called off due to a rock hard pitch, that was dangerous to the players. The Torquay players/management were also unhappy with the state of the pitch.

You have to think that Elmore dropped a big bollock there.

They have a game against a BSP team that is going to play a strong side with several first teamers. In other words a possible money spinner (in terms of their usual gate receipts etc).

What made it worse is that even though I work in Tiverton at the moment, i drove home first and then went back.

I wasn't that surprised though. In fact, when we drove home earlier this afternoon we popped in to have a quick look (when i say we, i mean myself and someone who is a groundsman himself) and barely 3 hours from kick off no one was around, no lines marked, no watering and it looked harder than a dogs knob.

Whilst I appreciate teams at their level of football rely on volunteers to prepare the pitch. However, i know that the guy i was with puts a massive amount of time, effort and planning into every game and i know that he would have been planning the watering etc for days, to make sure it was near perfect conditions for the game. With a game as big as this was to Ellmore you think a bit more foresight might have gone into it?

I know my opinion is slighted by a waste of an evening and over an hour round trip, and no MacDonald's thick shake.

A costly mistake on the part of Ellmore me thinks and i would have to think twice before returning back to that ground.

I knew i should have gone to the Buckland vs Saltash game instead.

Perhaps a bye for us into the next round now beckons.

There's always Buckland v Bodmin on the Tuesday immediately after Easter...

I strolled up the hill tonight to be reminded of the continuing progress at Exeter City and of the sorry decline of Port Vale. Their spell as top dogs in the Potteries must seem a distant memory now. I'd imagine their supporters - a 100 of them there tonight - must be in complete denial over the whole existence of Stoke City these days. Bring back John Rudge - Port Vale's best ever manager and the best one we never had?

I would prefer to see it as Crawley finally bowing out and Kettering and Burton both dropping 2 points.