Sidmouth Town’s South West Peninsula League (SWPL) home game with Newton Abbot Spurs was the first casualty of the day as the forecasted over night rain did its worst to leave local footballers faced with yet another soggy Saturday on the final weekend of January.
Town boss Josh Stunell’s fears on Thursday morning that any more rain would leave the Manstone Lane surface unfit for play, were realised as the Vikings game against the table toppers became the first – and no doubt not then last – of the SWPL games to be called off on the final Saturday of the month.
Just one game survived last Saturday and, across the three Saturday’s of 2018 so far, just 11 games have been played in the Eastern Division since the turn of the year.
With the festive break also being hit by wet weather it means that, since Saturday, December 9, just 21 matches have been completed in the Eastern Division in a period of seven weeks!
The Macron League also looks set for another rain wrecked day. Last weekend just seven matches – six league and one cup tie – survived and, by 9am 27 of today’s game had already been called off! Tipton St John suffered their third postponement in four weeks and the Macron League Division Three outfit have played just twice since December 2! They still have 14 league matches to play in their Division Three campaign.
From the start of February through to the first Saturday in May there are 14 Saturday’s remaining so it looks like being a busy last three months of the season for many local football teams.
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