A statement from the Burton Albion chairman, Ben Robinson, was published on Wednesday evening, following the previous night’s postponement against the Blues.
It was the second such call-off at the Pirelli Stadium in successive weeks, and the only surprise facing anybody arriving at the ground on Tuesday and seeing the watery scenes was that it took until 6.40pm for us to be told to go home.
Anyway - Robinson’s statement was of nine paragraphs and detailed the unfortunate reasons why Burton’s surface had suffered. There was talk of the winter weather, “significant rainfall”, poor pitch aeration and the lack of a window to carry out improvement works.
Plans to remedy things were also mentioned, along with a reaching out to "our supporters" inconvenienced by the problems. All important aspects of moving forward, certainly.
Little to no comment was made, though, about those most put out by events such as Tuesday’s: travelling fans.
Carlisle had more than 500 of them making their way to Burton on Tuesday. It cannot be right that the first they heard of an issue was when reporters such as this one got in the ground and started live-blogging about problems that were not, let’s be frank, sudden.
In the aftermath, too, it seems wrong that the wasted journey of many away followers, and the belated information stream, got next to no acknowledgement from the top of the club when it came to rounding up some form of communication after the event.
Messaging in football is a modern essential. So is showing that you’re at least bothered about the entire implications of a sub-standard state of affairs. "We know that fans make plans and travel arrangements, and fixture postponements are a frustration and expense," Robinson did say, but this seemed pointed towards the Burton faithful rather than to the people who'd ventured in vain from Cumbria.
My guess is Carlisle fans, while justifiably hacked off at a wasted trip and the late nature of it, would have felt just a touch better about Tuesday’s carry-on had they been mentioned or, better, reached out to, in the sort-of mea culpa that followed it.
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