Braintree chairman frustrated by league's fixture stance (From Braintree and Witham Times)
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Braintree chairman frustrated by league's fixture stance
9:00am Friday 15th March 2013 in News By Simon Spurgeon
Waterlogging of the Amlin Stadium pitch has been a thorn in the side of Braintree Town this year. Picture: NIGEL BROWN
Braintree Town chairman Lee Harding says he is frustrated that the Football Conference won’t allow any extension to the current season to help teams with a backlog of fixtures.
The Iron have been hit harder than most in the Blue Square Bet Premier after waterlogging problems with their pitch at the Amlin Stadium.
It has left them with 14 games to fit in before the end date of April 20 and Harding said it is disappointing that the league won’t allow an extension.
He said: “It is just becoming an inconvenience now.
“All Tuesdays are full and we’ll almost certainly have some games on Thursdays as we are running out of time.
“It’s just a bit disappointing to see a comment from the league that they won’t extend the season because we’ve had the second wettest year in the last 100.
“I know the league have issues with Wembley being available for play-offs, but it is a bit frustrating.”
Braintree will be hoping there are no weather-related issues to prevent their game at Stockport County tomorrow as they bid to extend their recent good form to four wins in a row.
That form has placed them in a good position to stay out of relegation danger and boss Alan Devonshire is pleased to already have points in the bag ahead of the hectic month ahead.
He said: “It’s looking pretty busy from now on and I think at least one week we’ll have a Saturday-Tuesday-Thursday-Saturday run of games, but there’s nothing we can do about that.
“It does show, though, that the last three wins have been critical to us.
“They are very important.
“The target has always been to get to 50 points and we just want to get the two more wins to get there as quickly as possible so we can relax a bit.”
Devonshire said he had no fresh injury concerns ahead of the trip to Stockport, but will be without Matt Paine as he serves the second of a three-game suspension.
The Iron boss has also extended the loan of Crawley Town midfielder Aaron Wickham for a month.
