Blackburn’s chief groundskeeper on an abandoned game in Ipswich Town
With ten minutes remaining and Rovers leading 1-0 at Ewood Park on September 20, referee Stephen Martin called off the match. Rovers called the EFL’s decision to request a complete replay of the game, which is scheduled for Tuesday, December 2, “extremely disappointing.” Rovers have now released an interview with Trevor Wilkin, their head groundskeeper. He denied that the River Darwen, which flows alongside Ewood Park, was a contributing factor, stating that the main reason was the amount of rain.
He acknowledged, “I think we have to kind of hold our hands up and say the weather beat us,” in reference to the Ipswich game. “I know there’s a lot of scaremongering, but it’s a good opportunity to say that this game had nothing to do with the river at all; it was just the amount of rainfall that we received.” When we examined the river on Saturday morning, the drains were operating flawlessly and there were no issues.
Anyone who attended the game will remember that as the day went on, it simply became heavier and heavier until it reached a point where it was physically incapable of absorbing any more water. The next day, we received the rainfall data, and we received more than 77 millilitres, or more than three inches, of rain. Therefore, three inches of water covering the entire field is a significant amount of water. Furthermore, there is no denying the fact that the pitch is old; it is currently 36 years old, meaning that the drainage and infrastructure are also old.
However, that has nothing to do with the Ipswich game. We just could not handle that quantity of water; facts are facts. “We used a machine called a vertidrain on Friday to punch holes in it, and once more, I was worried that once the players started running on the pitch, they would tend to seal all the holes up.” Therefore, it is evident that all of the holes we made are closing as the game has continued.
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