BFCST Statement re Exeter

Well done Gally and the trust. In the game off thread I've just quoted the FA pitch inspection guidelines that may be useful in your complaint.

 

Good luck getting a response from the EFL. The FA , EFL and the clubs could not give a flying **** about the fans. We are to them a necessary evil an inconvenience to be tolerated.

 

Thankfully Exeter's 2 goalkeepers wont but up too late tonight and can wake up fresh for school tomorrow.

 

It would be worth sending a similar letter (or straight copy) to the Exeter City CEO. They also have a responsibility. We know why the game was called off, but not why the communications were so poor and what happened at the pitch inspection on Monday (if one did actually take place). Are ECFC going to offer some form of compensation in addition to validating tickets for the rearranged game? Over 500 miles of journey is a full tank of petrol. £50-£70 quid at least if you travelled by car.

 

Presumably the squad were also already in Exeter by the time the game was called off?

 

But yet the clubs official statement thanks the valiant efforts by the Exeter groundstaff. There was no way it was going ahead when all matches in south west were off early morning

 

As far as I'm aware Exeter didn't postpone the game. They don't have the authority to do so. I believe it's the EFL who postpone the game on advice from the referee and in his opinion it was unsafe to play the game due to parts of the pitch being frozen.

 

No, The ref will have the call on this, after all, he/she is responsible for the safety of the players on the pitch. In local football, unless the council and/or local FA call the games off enbloc, when there has been a heavy snowfall for example, it is down to the referee upon inspection of the pitch whether the game goes ahead or not.

 

But they could have got a local qualified referee in earlier to inspect and advise

 

Do we know for sure they didn’t?

 

In the past at oakwell i have known them call local QUALIFIED refs in

 

Well surely if they did something would have been done about announcing postponement earlier

 

Someone could've at least communicated what was going on re: pitch inspections. Think it was Doug O'Kane that tweeted that if people knew there'd be an inspection at 4.30 pm, some people would've amended their travel plans and maybe incorporated a rest stop around that time before making the rest of the journey. That might be something BFC could've done as well.

But Exeter tweeted out something along the lines of "looking good, we'll keep you posted", then didn't say anything until the game was called off 6 hours later.

 

It's only Barnsley, nowt will get done about it.

 

Yeah, we could’ve done. If we’d known and not been informed by Exeter at 16.40 (just as we arrived) that the game was off, which we then communicated on our channels five minutes later.

 

Yeah, I meant more of an EFL ref living near or nearest to a particular venue rather than one further down the pyramid. Afterall, people keep telling me EFL ref’s are impartial

 

A couple of things on this. Firstly there was no need for the EFL to appoint a referee who's a teacher from Bolton to do a night game in Exeter in January - common sense (and impartiality?) lacking there, compounded by us having a ref on Saturday from the South Coast for a game against Accrington! Whoever set that up could easily have done the opposite appointments.

Secondly, what is to stop a locally based official doing an earlier inspection with the one from Bolton on the end of a smartphone simultaneously being shown what are these days fantastic film and pictures of the situation?

Whatever excuses, regulations and faux mitigations the EFL and/or Exeter may hide behind are just a charade to protect their ineptitude and contempt for us fans imho.