Well, I thought I'd let the dust settle a little before I chucked my two penn'orth in, but for what it's worth here goes...
Frost coversIn my view we should have hired some in. We don't have our own (and nor do the cricket club - why would they?), but given the money made from the game and the Cup run as a whole this season, the expense would have been minimal.
You can probably tell from the pics, but a section of the pitch is in permanent shadow during the winter. Even on a sunny day like Sunday when the rest of the pitch is perfect it always lags well behind in thawing out. The overnight temp was forecast everywhere I saw to go no lower than +2C, in which case I'm as certain as I can be that we'd have been fine. However, forecasts can be wrong (as we saw) and it would have been an expense worth "wasting".
Would covers have ensured the game went ahead? We'll never know, but I doubt it. The temp was reportedly -5C overnight, and the pitch was (in my experienced view, after 40+ years as a supporter) unlikely to recover in time.
However, if +2 would have been fine, and -5 was never going to be ok (as I say, just my belief) there must be borderline territory somewhere in between where covers would have made a difference. For that reason alone, we should have used them.
Winging it...No. There was never a chance that the re-arranged game was going to be televised. We had too much to lose to save a few bob relatively speaking. I think we just relied on the forecast being our "friend".
Early inspectionFor a run-of-the-mill League game, or an early rounds Cup tie, we would normally call in a local qualified ref to make an inspection if necessary early in the morning, with the power to call the game off. Of course, if he decided it was ok (or worth giving a chance) the match ref would still have the final say nearer kick-off. I'm told this was not within our remit on Sunday, presumably due to FA Cup "Proper" rules (as opposed to Qual Rounds), or possibly because of the game being part of the TV coverage.
CommunicationCards on the table (because I'm happy to take the flak) - I run the club's twitter account.
I was up early on Sunday, having to ferry my daughter to Malvern for cricket training. When I drew the curtains at 7.30 my first thought was we might be in trouble - as I say, 40 years of experience. So I texted my contact at the Club to let him know I'd be waiting for any relevant news and that I'd be driving between 8-9 and 11-12 and, being a good, law-abiding citizen, wouldn't be able to deal with anything. So I arranged a back-up to deal with anything during those times. I also put out a tweet (as I would always do if any doubt at all) saying if there was any news of an inspection we'd let people know.
Between 10 and 11 I asked twice by text if there was any news but only got slightly ambiguous replies that didn't tell me anything concrete I could put out on twitter. Had I not had my mind on other things I should have pushed harder for something to announce. As it was I assumed someone would have the good sense to advise me if there was anything to tell.
Driving in to Stour at about 12 I remember thinking to myself, "Well, we've said nothing all morning, so if it's off now we're going to look a right bunch of twonks".
By the time I got to my parents house to park the car and walk down to the ground I thought perhaps I'd been over-dramatic first thing, as I hadn't heard anything, until checking through incoming tweets I found the BBC announcing the game was off. Still not having heard from the club I checked twitter until I was certain enough this was correct and then tweeted it myself, by which time, of course, I was getting "all sorts"!
I left it at that for the rest of the day - I know many people have lambasted us (me) for the silence, but the honest answer is I was steaming. I would have ended up saying something I regretted to somebody, or quite possibly about my own club.
(Thanks, by the way, for all the tweets on Sunday and through the week - some have been plain stupid, some have made me laugh - especially the lunatic conspiracy theories - but most have been absolutely spot on)
Communication on Sunday was a shambles. Had it been a bog-standard League game against Corby or Barwell it would still have been a shambles but, frankly, it would have been forgotten within 24 hours. To **** it up on the big day was ridiculous. Had I been able to be at the ground it wouldn't have happened because I'd have had my own eyes to tell me what was happening. Had I pushed harder for concrete info, likewise. Have to take my share of the blame for that.
I emailed the Chairman about it on Sunday evening and said that a proper apology was needed. He didn't see the need, and again I haven't pushed it. In fairness to him, he spent most of the day, and into the evening, with sponsors - as any chairman would do an a big day like this, and I doubt at that point he had the full picture of what had gone on. I suspect he thought it was literally "just a few whingers like you always get". I suspect also that the same innocent ignorance applies to his "jovial" TV and radio interviews - he just wouldn't have been close enough to what was actually going on to know all the details at that immediate point in time.
I haven't discussed it with him since (still too steamed up most of this week!) but will do at some point. The time for a proper statement has probably been and gone though.
Just thought some form of explanation and apology was needed somewhere along the line.
PS. The forecast for Monday/Tuesday is significantly milder!