Jay Delermain-Neal

⚽ THE DECISION TO CANCEL A GAME! 🌧️💨 With Storm Austen and Storm Boelo bringing heavy rain, strong winds and weather warnings across the UK, it's looking like a difficult weekend for grassroots football. And you can almost guarantee what's coming next... "Why's the game off? It's not even raining here!" Before jumping on social media to criticise, just think about what goes into making that decision. Is the pitch playable? Will it drain? What's the forecast? Are weather warnings in place? Is it safe? How far are teams travelling? Are hundreds, potentially thousands, of people going to be affected? Sometimes games are cancelled early, sometimes at the very last minute. And yes, sometimes the weather improves and, with hindsight, the game could have gone ahead. But hindsight is a wonderful thing, isn't it? We've made these decisions ourselves plenty of times. It's not an exact science, and nobody has a crystal ball. What people don't see are the volunteers up late checking forecasts, out first thing inspecting pitches, and worrying about making the right call for everyone. They're not cancelling games for the fun of it. Believe me, they'd much rather the football went ahead! So before giving someone a load of grief because your game is off, remember they're doing their best with the information they've got. A little understanding wouldn't go amiss. To everyone making those difficult calls this weekend, we appreciate you. 🙌🏻🙌🏽🙌🏿