Four days on and the silence from the club has been deafening.
Like many supporters, I woke up on Saturday morning anticipating one of the biggest league games we've ever hosted at Spotland. Ten games unbeaten, the Play Offs in sight and a chance to make a League double over a side that we grew up watching on TV, and our biggest fears of a postponement looked to have been allayed with the Saturday morning weather better than expected.
But at around 9-30 news started to filter through that our game was off, and those who expected a deluge of other games to go the same way were left disappointed as it transpired that we would be the only club in the whole of the North West to suffer a postponement. Matters were made worse with news that football and golf continued unaffected just a stone's throw from Spotland on Saturday afternoon. So why is it we suffered when so many others didn't?
Unfortunately, that appears to be the million dollar question right now. Nobody know, because nobody is saying anything. There was the odd whisper coming out which shifted blame on to Hornets and on to the Referee, but nobody has said a single thing as to why the game was off. Common sense seems to suggest that the weather leading up to this game should not have been sufficient to have forced the postponement.
Previously, we'd have had the groundsman interviewed or the manager giving his opinions, but other than a brief snippet from Hill in the Ob expressing his disappointment, Dale fans have been left to speculate with nothing else to go on. Some of the speculation may well have been blood boil in the corridors of power at Spotland, but if the club refuse to offer any reason at all, then what else do they expect?
Did the Hornets game six days earlier do sufficient damage to the pitch that it was unable to drain away the surface water? Was the referee simply hasty by postponing a game at 9-30 with half an eye on the travelling supporters? Are the drains that the clubs paid out for two Summers no longer functional? Was it circumstances beyond the control of the club, with the local water table at such levels that they were no longer accepting further draining water? We just don't know.
And it's this which disappoints me as much as anything - this lack of any sort of statement on the whole matter from the club. We've been in difficult situations before, such as demands to turn up in front of the High Court, but at least once news of such events has come out, the club have often acted swiftly to placate the supporters. In fact, I'd go as far as saying that every single time that the Chairman has released a statement, it has been greeted with almost 100% approval from the supporters. We are a fanbase that understands, so why have we not been entrusted with any sort of information since Saturday?
Amongst the suggestions for possible solutions has been the purchase of a full set of pitch covers for the playing surface. Whilst the drains may well be the real root of the problem, . Indeed, based on the one picture issued by the club since Saturday's postponement, it does appear that the groundsman sees the use of a pitch cover as being beneficial, with part of the pitch covered with the limited resources that he has at his disposal, with reports suggesting he was at the ground late on Friday night ensuring they were in place.
Pitch covers may not be perfect, and they certainly won't solve all of our problems, but there can be no doubt that after three or four dry days, had such covers prevented the Friday night / Saturday morning rainfall from infiltrating the Spotland playing surface, then what was arguably our biggest game of the season would have gone ahead with a bumper away following at £20 a head that will not travel to Spotland in such numbers for a Tuesday night game.
Of course, resources at the club will always be stretched and it is understandable that a Stadium Company that needed to be loaned £5,000 by the football club last Summer to pay wages does not have the necessary funds lying around ready to make such purchases on a whim. There will be understandable reluctance from our fellow shareholders to make such a purchase that they may not deem necessary for their own interests (but in such case, our reluctant shareholders must certainly forget their dream of hosting a RL World Cup game next year) which brings us round to the Dale Trust.
The Dale Trust are currently sitting on a pot of money that would go a long way to funding such a purchase - a pot of money that was initially raised to help provide training facilities for the club. Diverting such funds could not be done without the support of its members, but it would not take long to sufficiently publicise an EGM to make such a decision. The decision could be made within the fortnight. Perhaps the board are still smarting from allowing the Trust to raise such funds only for the Bowlee project to not go ahead and as such are reluctant to go cap in hand to the Trust again.
But whilst the Trust have mused in public this week that they would be open to such an approach, the club have again remained silent, with reportedly no approaches to the Trust this week over such help. Of course, this might well be because pitch covers are not the answer to the pitch problems, but common sense would lead you to believe that if the club had a solution at hand, then there'd have been no problems in announcing the plans, and even if such a plan or solution on behalf of the club could not be made public at this moment in time, then something simple would have sufficed acknowledging the problem whilst admitting the club are working hard to solve the problem. As I said, we are a fan base that understands rather than demands to know every single bit of tittle tattle.
Regardless of this current issue, the board will rightfully be kept in high esteem in the eyes of the supporters, and the apparently ongoing feelgood factor about the club will not suffer any long term damage, but in many people's eyes, the club has lost more face with their lack of reaction to the postponement than they did with the postponement in the first place. It's not too late to salvage this situation.