Chapter 1: What caused the postponement of the Pompey vs Ipswich game?
The latest Pompey news updates every day from the Pompey Sound News Desk. The following somewhat terse announcement was posted on the official Portsmouth FC website at approximately midday. Pompey's scheduled championship fixture against Ipswich at Fratton Park this evening has been postponed due to a waterlogged pitch.
This is after persistent overnight rain, continuing into the morning and forecast to last until close to kick-off, has fallen on already saturated ground. A new date for the fixture will be announced in due course. Conspiracy theorists lost no time in speculating who made the decision, and whether Pompey influenced it with a view to postponing the fixture until they had a stronger squad.
Ipswich fans were absolutely apoplectic. Tractor boy DJ Simon Bizzle screamed on X. Whereas at Myth, ITFC took time out from herding his uncle's heifers to tweet... How pathetic.
Chapter 2: How did Ipswich fans react to the game's postponement?
That's twice fans have paid for travel and accommodation, etc. for the game to be called off. Pompey should be reimbursing all fans who've already paid for commitments or forfeiting the game. Simple as. Move him along. Get him off me foot. Yeah, there's quite a few Ipswich supporters who feel like those too. You can't please some people, can you?
The game was called off so that they wouldn't travel. If they're driving or on a train, they would need to be setting off sometime early afternoon.
Chapter 3: What are the implications of the postponement for Pompey and Ipswich?
So by making the announcement before midday... Pompey were saving them the same hassle that they had the last time round when the referee called the game off with plenty of Ipswich fans already halfway to Portsmouth.
And the club, I suspect, influenced the speeding up of the process that led to the game being announced as postponed with the Ipswich fans in mind, looking after the fans of the opposing club. And what sort of thanks did Pompey get for that? Tin pot club! Well, there's not a lot you can do about the downpours that we've had.
Anybody who was out on the roads today will have seen so much standing water and possibly had to... I mean, we went for a drive the day before the heavens opened and at one point we were going through nearly a foot of water.
albeit in a dip in a country lane but the standing water is immense in quantity and of course the pitch is waterlogged now the Ipswich chairman to be fair to him Ashton his name is not that Ashton the other another Ashton used to be a player actually and now a football executive run a number of football clubs and doing a good job at Ipswich and sounds like a very reasonable bloke gets very involved in the community
at ipswich and he got up on his hind legs at a recent meeting uh no an event a dinner i think and he was talking about the fact that there's a lot of money in football and of course there's a lot of money in ipswich but what he was saying is that some of that money needs to be spent not on players and players salaries but just on improving the general conditions in the game
If clubs are having to or believe that they have to spend all their money on buying expensive imports, players that is, and paying them handsomely, if they think that that is their key priority, number one, two, three and four and not much else matters, then you will get games being called off.
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Chapter 4: How does the weather affect football match scheduling?
Because the pitch, and I'm not saying that this is the case at Fratton Park, because the pitch doesn't have sufficient drainage to deal with an immense quantity of water. We looked at the weather forecast for Pompey for the day in question, and it was 100% heavy rain through until early evening. when the percentage likelihood of heavy rain dropped to something like 95%.
So it was wet, there was no doubt surface water, and it was only going to get wetter. The key to Pompey's drainage, which used to be pretty good, and I suspect still is, but there are limits to anything, was the camber of the pitch. Anybody who's got down to eye level on the side of the Pompey...
playing area and looking across we'll see what an enormous camber there is on the pitch which is probably the first port of call when it comes to pitch drainage give it a camber so that the water runs to where the assistant referees are going to get booties so uh that's a shame that Ipswich can't recognize that Pompey went out of their way to be supportive of them and to help them um but we all like a little moan don't we there were plenty of Pompey
so-called faithful, who were suggesting that it was embarrassing and that we probably... Oh, one guy, Ian McDonald, I think, said on X that probably somebody forgot to register the loan players, which I can't see the point in saying something like that. If you want to say something that you think is funny, make it funny. Or try.
Chapter 5: What are the financial responsibilities of clubs during postponements?
As the dust settles on the transfer window closing, it's pretty clear now who's coming and who's going, who's leaving and who's staying. However Pompey fans, anxious to hear some of the unresolved outcomes, have been disappointed so far. The major query hangs over the long-vaunted possibility of Pompey spending proper money to bring in Luke Graham from Dundee.
The fate of Jordan Archer and Florian Bianchini has yet to be made clear, as is the truth behind the last-minute rumour that Wrexham were coming in for Terry Devlin.
Those fans interested in the decisions concerning Jacob Farrell and Luke LaRue and the possibility that they might go out on loan, need to be aware that the rules about loan players are significantly different from transfers and those governing free agents.
According to English Football League regulations, Rule 6.6.4 states clubs can loan players in the second half of the season until 5pm on the fourth Thursday in March, giving Pompey ample think time before they make up their mind.
It's an indication of how complicated things are in professional football, down at the blunt end where people sit behind desks and have to work their way through the rules and regs. The very fact that there are rules and regulations covering loaning of players, the loaning of players, that extend to Chapter 6, Section 6, Category 4.
664 is the bit that refers to when players can no longer be loaned or borrowed from other clubs. And Pompey have got plenty of time to find the right location for Jacob Farrell and Luke Leroux.
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Chapter 6: How do player transfers impact match availability?
So the fact that there's been no announcement there is to the club's credit because they want to get that one right. And, of course, getting that one right means assessing who they've got and what the injury situation is and is likely to be over the coming, is it six weeks through until the date that was mentioned? Something like that. So a lot of careful planning has to be done at all times.
The one person connected with Pompey who will not be phased by all those rules and regulations, Chapter 6... Part 6.4 is, of course, John Messina, because if he hadn't made it as a footballer, he wanted to be a corporate lawyer.
Given that Pompey predicted all along that the bulk of transfer activity during the January window would take place at the death, some supporters may express surprise that they agreed to replay the postponed Ipswich fixture 24 hours after the window closed. It meant that last-minute deals to bring players into Pompey might not be able to register in time to be available for the game in question.
However that consideration is balanced by the need to spread upcoming fixtures so that congestion is avoided, or at least minimised.
Speculation is growing that the third attempt to play Portsmouth versus Ipswich could come at a very critical time in the season for both clubs, with Ipswich bearing down on a promotion place and Pompey seeking to ensure their survival as a championship outfit, conspiracy theorists suggesting that Pompey were relieved to have the game postponed, and some appear to go so far as to suggest the home club influenced the decision.
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Chapter 7: What are the fans' sentiments about the game being called off?
should be rebutted by the simple fact that Pompey would have liked to have gone ahead with the game not only to ease potential fixture congestion, but also to build on their excellent 3-0 win over West Bromwich Albion last time out, and if they did manage a win over Ipswich the three points would have opened a significant gap between Pompey and the bottom three.
As for Ipswich their last two performances and results have been poor, and with Coventry and Middlesbrough not playing this was an opportunity to get within four points of their arrivals. The general consensus is that the third date for the game may be much later in the season. And it may indeed be a fixture with huge implications at both ends of the Championship.
Yes, you can argue that with Colby Bishop, almost certainly wouldn't have made the game. And our new boy, Brown, Jacob Brown, possibly not yet registered to play for Pompey. There is an argument that it suits Pompey to have the game postponed for the second time. But, you know, the business about going into the game with your tail up is very important in football. We all know that.
We all know that after a good win, a side is 10% at least better than they would have been if they'd come a cropper. And we don't need Colby Bishop in any way, in any case, or Jacob Brown necessarily to score our goals for us because we're popping goals in right, left and centre. Well, not right, left and centre, but certainly we could have had more than three, couldn't we, against West Brom?
And we have yet to see Segecic getting back on the score sheet where he belongs and where he's very good. Although, interestingly, looking at some random stats yesterday in between nothing being announced, we noticed that Pompey's second most prolific scorer so far this season is Minhyuk Yang, which is interesting. So are we glad that the game has been postponed?
As supporters, no, because it's always good to be going to a game later on. It lifts your entire day, even if it's wet and windy and you've got that walk, you know, however you get to Fratton Park, you've got to walk part of it and you're going to get wet, even if you've got a nice warm seat in the stand and it's covered.
I always feel for the supporters who technically are in a covered area, but they're down the front and they really do have to tog up in their weatherproofs, their waterproofs, their oil skins. They look like Captain Birdseye on a bad day, half of them, but they don't care because they're watching Pompey, and that's what they want to do, and that's what we wanted to do.
So are we disappointed that the game's been called off from that point of view? Yes. But I think if we took an overview, we would say, yeah, let's regroup, let's play on a good pitch, and because it's an evening kick-off, we always have the advantage... We're good in the rain, but next time round, third time lucky, let's hope that it doesn't start raining until 10 minutes before the kickoff.
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