FA letting Down Grass Roots Football
The FA are an easy target. Often they seem to get abuse almost for the sake of it. Then they do something so stupid that it is almost inconceivable.
The Western league operates for clubs broadly from the Bristol Area down to Devon operating at level nine of the pyramid - roughly Flackwell Heath sort of level. Obviously the clubs are small, with small squads and the players work in normal jobs.
travel distances can be large - around 250 miles round trip not uncommon.
This season because of the weather there have been a huge number of postponements. The two joint leaders still have eighteen games to play. Bitton (a team based near Bristol) have 16 league games to play plus two FA vase semi finals games
- the biggest games in their history. there are also county cup and league cup games to play. There are 51 days (7.5 weeks) left now until the end of the scheduled league season to fit in all these games.
The league approached the FA asking for permission to extend the season by a couple of weeks to give the clubs and players a reasonable chance to get the games played. They were refused.
Bitton then must play 18 games minimum in 7 weeks. If they make the Vase final they would then have a three week gap from the end of the season before the Vase final is played.
I presume this situation is to an extent at least replicated around the country. You do have to wonder if in this case the FA stands for Fcking Aseholes.
Comments
Has a league season ever been lengthened to catch up on fixtures without playing three times a week?
Used to quite regularly play double headers where the winner got the points for both games when I played junior football as pitches were used for other things.
Season 62/63 following a very bad winter was extended at all levels to the end of May even the FA cup final was put back .