Time to say goodbye to Accy

Last updated : 16 February 2010 By Tony Scholes

I suppose we can point the finger of blame initially on referee Graham Laws who single-handedly wrecked the Turf Moor pitch in January 2005. On New Year's Day the oft maligned official incredibly allowed the home game against Leicester to go ahead before abandoning it after seventeen minutes, and in doing so it caused enough damage to the pitch to leave it in a difficult state for the rest of the season.

When the Liverpool cup tie was called off the following week, and vital television money was nearly lost, the club decided to move the reserve games out of town and decided upon then Conference club Accrington Stanley.

A month earlier, on 8th December 2004 we had beaten Wrexham reserves 3-0 on the Turf. Amadou Sanokho scored twice with Alex Taylor also scoring. It was another seven weeks before we played again. This time Graham Branch and Cayne Hanley were the scorers in a 2-0 win against Shrewsbury Town.

That Shrewsbury win was played at Accrington, our first reserve game to be played out of town, and since then all home reserve games have been played at Accrington along with some prestigious FA Youth Cup ties against Arsenal and Everton.

I've never liked the idea for a couple of reasons. I prefer them to be played at home and in any case I've never considered the playing surface at the Crown Ground to be suitable.

It got me in a bit of trouble a couple of years ago. I dared to criticise the state of the pitch in an article on this site and it led to me being harassed at the next game by the groundsman, the chairman Eric Whalley and someone I thought was a young kid who turned out to be the chief exec.

Eventually, for making comment on the state of the pitch, I was barred from the ground and refused entry to the next game, that was until Vince Overson came riding to my rescue and I ended up getting an apology for having had to put up with the abuse at the previous game.

I've attended every home game there but that's not caused me to visit the town much this season - once to be exact, and that was in September when we beat Hull 2-0 with two Steven Thompson goals.

Since then, for one reason or another, Accrington Stanley have been unable to stage any of our reserve games, or indeed the FA Youth Cup tie against Manchester United. The latter was a bonus with the game being moved to exactly where it should have been in the first place - Turf Moor.

Again tonight they've failed to provide a playable surface for the reserve game against Liverpool. Despite passing a pitch inspection at 12 noon they somehow couldn't keep it fit enough for the match referee who called it off around 5:30 p.m.

I'm told Burnley FC officials were far from happy with this latest episode, and that included manager Brian Laws who had his plans to give some of his players some game time dashed just ninety minutes ahead of kick off. A game tonight for Chris McCann, for example, might have made the difference between him being available for the Villa game or not on Sunday.

I was really looking forward to the reserve league this season, against some of the top teams in the country, but one game at home all season is now some kind of sick joke. Take a look at the League table - click HERE to see the current table - and we've played at least two games less than everyone else and five less than a couple of clubs.

In confirming the postponement, Burnley FC said it was beyond their control. I'm not having that, they have chosen to play the games there and therefore must accept some responsibility when the games are called off.

We bend over backwards to help Accrington Stanley. After the pre-season game against them, manager Owen Coyle admitted that he would have preferred not to have played the game but said they needed the money. Then he played a pivotal role in getting them £35,000 towards their tax bill with a game on the Turf just a few weeks into the season.

In return they've been able to stage one of our reserve games in around six months. It's time to stop helping them and start helping ourselves and that should start with moving the home league games to a different ground with immediate effect. If the club don't believe they can be played on Turf Moor then they need to find somewhere else.

I don't think we'll do that - and the way things are going I can see us playing three and four reserve games in a week to get the fixtures completed. Then you have to wonder what use there is in playing them at all.