Easy Tiger ...

blueboo wrote:

Bideford at Histon  Tomorrow OFF.Bideford cannoy get team to travel as players cant get off work, That will open a massive can of worms, cant get a team ,,,,just make excuse.

Bit harsh, that. Bideford to Hitchen on a mid-winter's Tuesday night - a round journey of nearly 500 miles - absolutely crazy. Nearly as bad as Chippenham playing Truro midweek; nearly 400 miles return. Not been able to raise a team is not an excuse, but fact of life for some clubs. Yes, I know it's been like this for years, but it's about time that Leagues at this level started to give a bit more thought to fixture arranging, to avoid nightmares like this for players, club officials and fans alike.
 

Joiner wrote:

Following on from Yorkie's comments regarding journey's, according to the match report one of the officials came from Falmouth. Whatever were the league thinking of appointing someone from over 200 miles away in the middle of winter. Surely there wasn't a shortage of more local officials that they could have appointed.

Good point, Joiner. During my 15 years on the Southern League match officials were appointed by the League itself. Travelling expenses were capped at about £10/match, so if you wanted to referee at clubs more than, say, 75 miles from home then you could but you weren't allowed to claim for the additional mileage!
Today, I believe match officials are centrally appointed and clubs, i.e. the Leagues don't have much of a say who is appointed and where they come from. Progress, eh?