Stockport County v Southend United Early Kick-Off: 'Fully appreciate decision was late in the day'

23 March 2011 12:52
Stockport County v Southend United: The early kick-off time has outraged many travelling Shrimpers who booked their rail tickets well in advance of the Stockport County match at Edgely Park Saturday. It was all their fault guv!It started to look strange when looking at the week's fixtures only Stockport v Southend along with Bradford City v Shrewsbury were the only League Two fixtures kicking-off at 15.00.Oh hang on, England take on Wales in the Euro 2012 qualifiers at the Millenium Stadium, now when was that match decided on?Still, it took until Monday for the clubs involved in our game to move it forward a couple of hours, tough on those who had got cheap fares as advised by the companies, up to 13 weeks in adavance, as low as £8 singles (£16 return, cheaper with railcards), in some Virgin services. Many will now miss at least the first half and as this is Virgin we're talking about, maybe even more! Stock up on some decent beer lads.A club spokesman told www.echo-news.co.uk: "The club was contacted by Stockport County last Friday and asked if we would be willing to change the kick-off time of Saturday's match due to the England international. Several matches in our league had already changed, albeit with more notice, to allow supporters to back their national side. Following careful consideration of Stockport's request, as well as consultation with a number of supporters, everyone was in agreement that it was the correct decision to agree to the change in start time. Last Friday, brilliant! Hang on, SUFC took the weekend to come to a decision, why not Friday afternoon, Saturday morning, too late of course, but why sit on it?Anyway, it's done now and all the club could do was try and plead damage limitation.He continued: "We fully appreciate that it was late in the day, but unfortunately any decision was likely to have an affect on some sections of supporters, but it was felt that an earlier kick-off was in the interests of the majority of fans. Our supporters have been magnificent this season and hopefully those fans that do travel on Saturday will be rewarded with three points." Bad show all round.

Source: FOOTYMAD