The football league directive says that all postponed games should be rearranged for the earliest possible opportunity. Now we all know that last season that directive was completely ignored with regards the Charlton game and I believe that played a big part in our relegation with the psychological impact of unnecessarily being an extra 3 points behind all our relegation rivals for such a large part of the season and at a vital time. With this in mind I have to question why the same thing appears to be happening with the Doncaster game which can only have a negative impact on our season. If we played Donny straight away and beat them things would look a lot different. Our fans would feel more confident, there would be less people on the managers back, the players would have more confidence and I suspect attendances would rise slightly. Delaying the game can only have a negative impact in my opinion. So why exactly has a date three months after the original game been chosen? Remember the rules state that the game must be rescheduled by the clubs involved for 'the earliest reasonable opportunity'. How can a Tuesday night 3 months after the postponement be the earliest reasonable opportunity? The game is being played on a Tuesday night so how can that particular Tuesday be considered the earliest opportunity when there are nine free Tuesdays between now and the selected date? It cant be due to the police needing notice as they dont get this notice for cup games or even for an EDL march. It cant be because of travel considerations as we are but a few miles apart. It cant be because of long distance away games in the days before the Tuesday as Donny travel to Crewe just a few days before the scheduled game while on other free Tuesdays we both play much more local games for example on Saturday 1st November neither of us leave Yorkshire and the following Tuesday is free. It cant be due to international games as, well it just isnt. So why have they chose a game so far in the future? There is only one possible reason for that date that I can see and that is that we (and they) are not planning on getting past the first round of the FA Cup. They cant actually be so cynical as to rearrange the game for the weekend of the second round of the cup but by scheduling it for the tuesday before the second round and none of the other 9 free tuesdays the intention/ambition is pretty clear. We are planning for being dumped out of the cup at the first opportunity making the 2nd of December the ideal time to face doncaster as after falling at the first hurdle of the cup we will have a free weekend after the Donny game. Not sure what that says about the clubs ambition or belief in themselves really. What I do know is that potentially it could have a detrimental effect on our season like the poor decision last season had.
Are any of those 9 Tuesdays you mention International weeks, when Donny will again be unable to play due to international call ups, or weeks set aside for cup games?
Of the 9 I think about 2 would be taken up when I checked them out. It is certainly a minority of them though. In fact I dont think a single one would be an international weekend when all three of donnys players' countries would be involved and that just leaves potential JPT days which as you know are few and far between.
There's not just JPT weeks, there's also weeks that are set aside for FA cup replays, plus Donny are still in the Capital One cup, so they can't rearrange it for those weeks.
Ben Mansford told me the club were happy with the postponement. And, judging by Danny's comments at the time, so was he as apparently the lads were tired and some not fit etc.
Sorry youre right. I had taken those into account thought as the only FA cup replay week is the 18th/19th of November and the league cups only date is the 28th October so while all the 9 are currently available there is a potential if all things conspire against us that only 6 of the Tuesdays would be available and that includes the Tuesday which is preceded by both clubs not having to leave Yorkshire. I just think that the football league should be far stricter with their legislation and that clubs shouldnt put games off especially when later in the season they then start crying about fixture conjestion.
Smaller squad than most I suppose. A lot of Saturday - Tuesday games in this division. I can see his point of view. Don't agree with it though.
What if we'd rearranged it early, and lost it already? That game in hand is providing us with a ray of hope.
Interestingly only 9 sides have used more players than us so far this season. Weve used 24 players already and its only September so if theyre knackered then the holibobs abroad cant have done them much good
