Brid Town Chairman's Statement Leaves Manager "At A Loss"

Chairman Peter Smurthwaite accused some of his own players of being more interested in eating cake and drinking beer than playing football.

Yesterday, Bridlington Town posted a statement from their Chairman Peter Smurthwaite, on the postponement of the club's fixture against Cleethorpes Town on Saturday. The match was called off just 20 minutes before kick off with players, supporters and officials all in the stadium.

In the statement, as well as talking about the postponement, Smurthwaite controversially picked on some of his own players "who always moan about everything", sparking a response from Manager Mike Thompson.

Here's the statement in full:

I must send my sincere apologies to Cleethorpes Town Football Club, their fans and all other fans who were at our ground on Saturday for the unsatisfactory situation we all witnessed.

We are fortunate with our pitch that the sun covers the whole of the pitch apart from a small area of the gas works end corner from 9:00am until 2:00pm at this time of the year and that was the situation on Saturday morning.  The frost had thawed over 95% of the pitch by 1:00pm, We had closely monitored the pitch condition on the Friday before and at 2:00pm it was perfectly playable, in fact, the ground staff said it was too soft to roll (see attached photos) We looked at the predicted temperatures for Saturday which were very similar to Friday and decided we did not need to organize a pitch inspection by an official.

At 1:00pm Saturday, the temperature was 6 Degrees Celsius   The officials arrived at 1:20pm and looked at the pitch and said generally it was ok, both teams then went through their warm up routines and were happy enough to play the game apart from the couple of usual Brid Town players who always moan about everything and would prefer birthday cake and Moretti beer rather than what I pay them for!

The referee decided to do another inspection at 2:30pm and at 2:40pm decided the pitch was unfit and called the game off in the: –

“Interest of players safety”

A decision which I personally was not consulted about.

It now won’t be long in football until heading and tackling will be banned altogether and players will be playing in specially designed slippers to prevent injury and preparing a risk assessment statement and method statement for travelling to the ground.  No consideration was given to the fans many of whom were already in the ground and the people who have to pay the bills at the club.

I come from an era when you did everything you could to get a game played.  I have been involved in clearing snow to uncover the markings, finding a bag of sawdust and re-mark the pitch, forking the pitch for an hour to drain the penalty areas, brushing water off the pitch and using a roller to remove the ice.

This situation will not happen again as long as I am in charge which hopefully won’t be for much longer.  We will now arrange a pitch inspection by a referee at 10:00am on a Saturday to allow the decision to be made then rather than assess the predicted temperature later in the day or the evening and just cut our losses.

I know I am seen as an “old dinosaur” from the “dark ages” and go back to the days of using rope for the crossbars but, I have a “Football University Degree” in “common sense” and that was lacking on Saturday.

I have had to make decisions all my footballing career even when I was 15, I was running my local streets boys football team and mending punctures on team mate’s bikes so they could travel on those dangerous roads to get to grounds we played on in the Hull Sunday Boys League, across the City of Hull (no risk assessment then).

Even after all that effort we lost our first game 18- nil against Fish Trades Boys Club, but I am still here many years later and I have at least received my 50 year services to Football Medal from the Football Association (when the ERCFA eventually found it )

Even from the “dark ages” some values are still worth holding onto and honesty, integrity, enthusiasm and enjoyment, but sadly are these becoming rare commodities and do I still have the energy to deal with this lack of common sense, we will see.  I will be at Hebburn on Saturday and make sure I get the kit back to the laundry lady in Bridlington on Saturday evening.

On a lighter note, I remember when Billy Heath and Mark Carroll were the Managers when I first came to the club, a fixture was postponed on a Saturday and Billy told the players “You don’t get Saturday afternoons off when I’m the Manager”.  We all had to report to King George Vth playing fields in Hull and trained for 2 ½ hours in 2 inches of snow and then he told the players we were going to the Hop Pole Public House just up the road.  As usual he said, “SMURTHY will get the first round in”

Needless to say, we won the Northern Counties East Premier Division by a record number of points in 2003!!

HAPPY DAYS

Yours in Sport

Peter Smurthwaite

Chairman

The tweet which linked to the statement has been seen over 125,000 times at time of publishing this article.

Bridlington Town's Manager Mike Thompson replied on twitter with the following:

Wow, time to take stock I think, having my players professionalism brought into question after the way we have tried to do things the last 6 months. Im at a loss really.