From the Terraces: If Harrogate Town's pitch was unsafe after nine minutes, then Carlisle United match should never have even started

Frustrated doesn’t even begin to sum up how I feel after Tuesday night’s debacle.

Whilst I’ve seen a couple of abandonments, or very late postponements in my time, it’s usually been when the conditions have quickly deteriorated in an unforeseen fashion.

I’ve never known a game deemed safe to start at 7.45pm by the referee, then abandoned nine minutes later, without a significant change in the weather conditions.

I appreciate that we can all make mistakes, and accepting that the referee was seeking not to postpone if at all possible, it’s either safe to start the match, or it isn’t. If you’re going to decide to kick-off and see how it goes in the first ten minutes, I’d venture that you should have made the decision to call Town’s clash with Carlisle United off at the 5pm pitch inspection.

Although I’m not qualified to comment on the state of the pitch, as I’ve been closely heeding the ‘Keep Off The Grass’ signs placed around the perimeter, it’s fair to say that neither myself or my daughter Molly thought it looked overly dangerous at the time.

It maybe needed a little more caution than normal, as any wet pitch would for example, but the possibility of abandonment never crossed our minds.

In fact, when the referee went across to the benches after 10 minutes, we thought he was having a stern word with Carlisle manager, Chris Beech.

Slow handclaps and boos from the stands then gave way to stunned silence, as the match was inexplicably called off and the players ordered back to the changing rooms.

In hindsight, it had taken us twice as long to walk to the ground safely, and ambling the dog around the block at gone-11pm revealed an extremely bitter and cold frost, with ice cracking under foot on the footpaths. But, I’d refer you back to my original point: why start the match at all, if safety was a concern going forward?

What made it all harder to stomach was that Town had torn into third-in-the-table Carlisle with all the velocity of an angry tornado, taking the lead inside a minute, after a great Ryan Fallowfield cross was superbly headed in by Connor Kirby on an early rampage forward.

Would this be the night Town finally laid waste to their indifferent home form and their injury-stricken visitors? We’ll never know now, of course.

“It could have been worse. We could have set off at 1pm to Barnet on a minibus, arrived 15 minutes after kick-off, missed our goal and had the game called off at half-time,” was the reaction of one of our supporters, Jordan Ford, once we were all safely back in the warmth.

It’s a fair point and, looking on the bright side, at least we had a ‘goal’ to celebrate and it’s not as if most of us had far to travel safely home. Yet how cruel to see our first in-the-flesh celebration since early March chalked off.

The visitors had certainly looked shell-shocked, even more so than hapless Oldham at the weekend, when Town forced four saves from the home keeper in the first five minutes.

It was great to see the players again start in such belligerent and confident mood, following on from that confidence-boosting victory at Boundary Park.

Our midfield diamond of Ed Francis, George Thomson, Kirby and Brendan Kiernan were superb in snowless Lancashire. Thomson, in particular, was immense.

Even if you ignore his two top class strikes, one with either foot, his work rate when not in possession was incredible.

What odds would you have got on Lloyd Kerry and skipper Josh Falkingham both sitting on the bench at the start of the season? Yet, with Francis and Kirby excelling in midfield, that’s where we find ourselves.

It’s a nice dilemma for Simon Weaver to have, of course, and shows signs of strength in depth once again in midfield.

With the seemingly unstoppable rise of a dangerous third wave of coronavirus, at the time of writing we are awaiting the latest Government announcement with regards to where North Yorkshire finds itself in terms of the tiering system.

Much as my heart tells me I’d like to be able to attend the Cheltenham game on Saturday, my head says we need to lockdown again as a country pretty sharpish.

Maybe the Government will finally learn the lessons from March and – unlike Tuesday night’s referee – make a tough decision before it’s too late. I won’t hold my breath on that score.

Not for the first time this year, I find myself hoping my instincts are wrong in terms of this virus, but it seems we’re in for a difficult New Year.