Why Harrogate Railway's Boxing Day trip to Selby Town was ‘a shambles from start to finish’

The Starbeck club’s first competitive fixture since October 31 was abandoned at half-time due to floodlight failure, leaving the Rail chief and his players extremely frustrated.

“We had tried to get the game postponed because one of our lads tested positive for Covid-19 on the Wednesday and we’d all been around him at training on Tuesday,” O’Connell explained.

“The league wouldn’t let us, however, and said that we needed at least two positive test results for the game to be off. But they didn’t come back to us with that decision until very late in the week, so it was almost Christmas Day before we knew where we stood.

“Then there was a pitch inspection before it was eventually decided that the game would go ahead. We got to 10 minutes before half-time and the floodlights started to flicker.

“We went into the changing room at the break and just as we were about to head back out onto the pitch there was a knock at the door and we were informed that the match was being abandoned.

“It was just a shambles from start to finish. It’s not easy to sort everything out so that you’re actually able to field a team with all the Covid-19 precautions, so to get 45 minutes through the game and then the floodlights blow, it’s just really frustrating.”

Saturday’s NCEL Division One encounter was goalless at the interval, Railway squandering a couple of decent opportunities to break the deadlock, while hosts Selby saw a penalty saved by visiting goalkeeper Jamie Hassall.

To add to O’Connell’s frustration, he was confident that his team would have gone on and won the game based on what he had witnessed during the opening 45 minutes.

“I firmly believe that we’d have gone on to win. We had a game-plan and it was working,” he added.

“We restricted Selby to a couple of long-range strikes, and although they got a soft penalty, they didn’t score it.

“We should probably have been 2-1 or 3-1 up by half-time. I thought that my lads played really well after so long without a match.”

Railway are due to return to action this Saturday when they host Parkgate, 3pm kick-off at Station View.

"I believe that Parkgate had a game called off due to Covid-19 recently, but as far as I know it's going ahead on Saturday," O'Connell continued.

"I hope we can get the game on, but I just don't know. You can't plan from one minute to the next at the moment."