Frost frustrates City at Redditch (From St Albans & Harpenden Review)

Frost frustrates City at Redditch

7:41pm Saturday 14th January 2012 in Sport By David Tavener

St Albans City had a wasted trip to the midlands on Saturday when their Southern League encounter with Redditch United was one of four Premier Division fixtures to fall victim of the weather.

The match had appeared set to go ahead following a brief unofficial inspection at 11am but when the Wolverhampton-based referee Thomas Harty inspected the surface at the Valley Stadium at around 1.45pm he declared the pitch as unsafe.

A sharp overnight frost had cleared in the bright sunshine from most of the playing area but an area still shrouded in shade from the main stand was frozen. Despite both managers appearing keen for the game to go ahead the match official erred on the side of caution.

The postponement came too late for the City players and a number of club officials and supporters who had already arrived for what was to have been the Saints first game at Redditch.

Whilst most people connected to St Albans returned home after looking around the Valley Stadium for a short while, a handful faced the daunting prospect of killing time until their return train journey headed back south at just after 7pm.

A new date for the match has yet to be arranged.

City had been looking to build upon their recent good run of 13 points from six games and will now aim to maintain their push towards the play-off places next Saturday, 21 January, when Swindon Supermarine make their first trip to Clarence Park for a Southern League match. Kick off is at 3pm.