Have had a call from my contact at Champion Hill and have been informed that the pitch is in excellent condition. Have been told that there is currently no frost in the pitch and that it is expected that, as things stand, tonight's game against Erith & Belvedere will go ahead as scheduled.

For clarity, the above information does not preclude the match referee coming to a different conclusion at any time before or indeed after 7.45pm! As a precaution, the match referee will be making an inspection of the pitch later this afternoon, around 5.30 pm.

The problem is NOT a further pitch inspection at 5.30pm!

Nor does it help that there is no frost on the pitch right now.

There is nothing we can do about the weather...but I would hope the referee looks at the pitch after 5.30pm, on the hour and half hour, if need to, to check it is not freezing up, & thus causing another Hamlet injury by kicking off without having checked if the playing surface is dangerous, prior to the scheduled kick off time ,as happened two weeks ago.

I'd rather it was postponed late, rather than the farce of playing four minutes, as we did last time, when the pre-match message was:

"My contact at the ground informs me that the pitch seems eminently playable ahead of tonight's game and that as things stand no pitch infection is planned and the game should go ahead as planned barring unforeseen circumstances."

As I have already received emails and calls from supporters concerned as to whether a pitch inspection was planned I would hope the explanation of the current situation would be of use to other supporters who felt the same way particularly those that may have to travel some distance to attend the game.

One can only post the situation as it stands now and as regards the pitch condition later in the evening, one can only go by the forecast weather conditions, which look set to remain just above freezing until much later tonight (Midnight according to the BBC Weather). There was very little if any ground frost last night when games at Kingstonian and Wealdstone both played so one has to look on the optimistic side.

The problems at the first game could have been avoided if the match referee had carried a second inspection nearer to kick off and decided that the pitch was not playable, though it seemed he wanted to continue after the incident with Terence Carter and the pitch barriers and it was only the players and management that persuaded him the pitch was not safe to continue. However, that has happened and history cannot be rewritten.

no but you can learn from history

But history is often rewritten.

It should not be, but it happens.

It's probably just me, but doesn't 'Terence Carter and the pitch barriers' sound like some obscure sixties pop band?

As regards history, we can learn from it, but all too often we prefer to ignore it. My favourite quote about the subject is from the Alan Bennett film 'The History Boys'. One of the masters asks "what is history?" & my favourite response by one of the boys was: "Well sir, it's just one fucking thing after another"!

I presume the match has passed the 5.30pm pitch inspection?

An update from 'your contact at Champion Hill' might help fans looking on here...