Grimsby Town 'knew' on Friday that Saturday's clash with Harrogate Town would not go ahead, but EFL ignored plea for earlier postponement

The League Two clash was called-off less than two hours before its scheduled kick-off time of 3pm after referee Sunny Singh Gill carried out two inspections and found the playing surface to be frozen in places.

An initial inspection took place at 11am, with a second arranged for 1pm, a time well after the majority of travelling Sulphurites supporters and also some home fans needed to set off to Cleethorpes in order to arrive for the start of the game.

The fact that the pitch was not safe came as no surprise to Stockwood, however, with Grimsby staff and officials aware by Friday afternoon that there was almost no chance of the Blundell Park turf thawing out in time given the state it was in at that point and the forecast for the following day.

And the Mariners chairman went on to say that he was left frustrated and disappointed by referee Mr Gill’s reluctance to take on board the club’s advice or make an earlier decision.

"We are disappointed. We wanted to get out there and play,” Stockwood told BBC Radio Humberside on Saturday afternoon.

“I’m like every other fan, I get ready for Saturdays, I’m excited for Saturdays, so I’m disappointed like everyone else, but safety is the number one priority.

“But I’m just disappointed because we knew yesterday. The EFL (Football League), rightly, they don’t want a fixture backlog but we tried to get a referee over last night to call it off because the forecast didn’t look like it was going to get any better.

“The referee insisted on coming over at 11am, but based on knowing Grimsby, the weather wasn’t going to change too much in two hours and, guess what? When he does his latest inspection we are here so I’m a bit frustrated and disappointed.

"It costs us real money as a club, £10-15k, but most of all we want to be out there on the pitch looking for a reaction to last week.”

On Grimsby’s conversations with referee Mr Gill and the reasons behind leaving it so late in the day to call the game off, Stockwood questioned whether “common sense” could have prevailed.“We tried to get the referee over here last night because we had the forecast and people in the club have enough experience to know that when the pitch looks a certain way what it’s likely to be like in 24 hours,” he added.

“The referee insisted on coming over himself and wouldn’t do it until 11am. The fixtures backlog is what they tell us, which I can understand, it’s a valid argument when we’ve got a backlog already, so I think the directive is leave it as late as you can, but I think a little bit of common sense could prevail in trusting the clubs.

“We want the games to be on. You don’t want to lose the money, you want the fans to be here, you’re prepared for it, the players are prepared for it, so I think there might be a conversation with the EFL about could they trust the clubs’ judgement sometimes. It’s difficult, but on this one I think it could have been called earlier in reality.

“No, it probably wasn’t [a close call]. Not much changed from yesterday to today and definitely not much changed between 11am and 2pm.

“The one thing the referee said was about the sun coming up, but everyone who has been to Blundell Park knows that underneath the largest stand doesn’t get much sun, so you know that that half of the pitch is going to be rock-hard still anyway. So that’s where the club’s experience could have told the referee that.”

Stockwood was keen to stress that while he was “sorry” for the inconvenience suffered by supporters, he doesn’t feel that Grimsby could have done any more to try and save them a wasted journey.

"I don’t want to demonise referees, but I think there’s a conversation to be had about making sure that we are not disrupting people who were making their way here,” he continued.“I’m just sorry and I’d like the fans and supporters to know that we try our best and nobody wants the game to be off, least of all us.

“I can only say sorry, it’s a bit too close to the kick-off time, but they need to know that we were doing everything that we could yesterday and we asked for it to be called off yesterday afternoon, but it’s not our call in the end.”