Unusual reasons for a United game being called off

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raimond said:
When we left the bloody undersoil heating on and baked the pitch, ridges all ovver it
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Happened a couple of times I think where we’ve put them on to melt the snow and ended up with a waterlogged pitch.
 
Did we have a friendly game against Birmingham abandoned in the 80s? May be a false memory.
 
Not us but I recall a game getting called off in the late 90's because of an eclipse!
 
Peterborough away always stays in my mind. Off due to a frozen pitch after I'd ridden the bike all the way down the A1 and frozen me nuts off. Mobile phone in my leathers so I'd never heard the calls.

Remember going for a pint with a load of other Blades, and a car pulling into the car park with an OWL reg plate. Loads of grinding of teeth, till one of the more well oiled Blades went out to give it a seeing to - before coming back inside with a bloody huge grin. OWL didn't mean PIG - it was the Cambs Hawk and Owl Trust works car!

Only thing to brighten a miserable, freezing waste of a day.
 
Russ said:
We had a friendly match against Aston Villa abandoned at half time because Andy Gray bumped his head on the frozen pitch 😄
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Silent Blade said:
Yes in 1987
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I remember my Dad telling me this story. He and his mates for the only time ever decided to stay in the pub rather than go to the match cos it was so cold, and were quids when they heard it had been called off because "we think Andy Gray has broken his neck".

My question is this though - why was there a friendly in the Winter months?
 
I was doing business in North Lincolnshire in the days before t'tinteret etc and I was playing music on the radio so I didn't hear of that evening's Blades game having been cancelled.

I turned up and was surprised to see deserted streets and no floodlights on.

It had been tipping it down all day and the waterlogged pitch meant my first ever visit to Grimsby Town was, literally, a wash-out!
 



I'm sure I remember a midweek game in the 80's away at Scunthorpe being called off due to fog.

The Oldham bomb game was always going to be the winner.
 
Stoke or Port Vale away at night rings a bell but I can't remember what happened
 
SheepdipBlade said:
Peterborough away always stays in my mind. Off due to a frozen pitch after I'd ridden the bike all the way down the A1 and frozen me nuts off. Mobile phone in my leathers so I'd never heard the calls.

Remember going for a pint with a load of other Blades, and a car pulling into the car park with an OWL reg plate. Loads of grinding of teeth, till one of the more well oiled Blades went out to give it a seeing to - before coming back inside with a bloody huge grin. OWL didn't mean PIG - it was the Cambs Hawk and Owl Trust works car!

Only thing to brighten a miserable, freezing waste of a day.
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It was the only game called off that day.
 
I remember walking the streets of Coventry in the pissing down rain early 70's, the coach dropped us off at the ground and buggered off, at that time the game was still on. Minutes later the ref inspected the pitch at Highfield road and called the game off due to a waterlogged pitch. The coach didn't return until 4.30pm to pick us up. Fair to say the collection for the driver on the way back would have hardly bought him a pint never mind a night out.
 
Not particularly unusual but I'd made it to being about 6 pints deep at the Wetherspoons next to Liverpool Street Station before hearing our cup tie against Orient was called off - apparently they'd forgot to put the covers out on the pitch.

Also made it as far as Peterborough before hearing that one was called off, bit nippy early morning going for the train but weather seemed fine so that was a surprise.
 
FA Cup match in 1990 at Barnsley away called off due to a roof collapsing under the snow. I remember we got as far as the railway station before being turned back by the police. Took ages to get home as the roads were in gridlock due to snow :rolleyes:
 
CrookesBlade said:
Not particularly unusual but I'd made it to being about 6 pints deep at the Wetherspoons next to Liverpool Street Station before hearing our cup tie against Orient was called off - apparently they'd forgot to put the covers out on the pitch.

Also made it as far as Peterborough before hearing that one was called off, bit nippy early morning going for the train but weather seemed fine so that was a surprise.
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The re-arranged Orient game was the debut of Kyle Walker.
 
ShorehamRevolution said:
When was this ?!
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Early 2000s under Warnock from memory. There was a match that was in danger of being frozen off, but we were told the undersoil heating would save us.

I'm pretty sure but can't remember if that match itself was called off (I know, that's what the thread is) but I remember the pitch looking completely f***ed when we next saw it, perfectly straight ridges all over it and genuinely looking dry, like it had been baked, amidst lots of whispers that the undersoil heating had been left on and baked it.

Pitch had to be relaid at the end of the season. Not sure of the year, but one of the wank Warnock years before the triple assault.
 
metalblade said:
I remember walking the streets of Coventry in the pissing down rain early 70's, the coach dropped us off at the ground and buggered off, at that time the game was still on. Minutes later the ref inspected the pitch at Highfield road and called the game off due to a waterlogged pitch. The coach didn't return until 4.30pm to pick us up. Fair to say the collection for the driver on the way back would have hardly bought him a pint never mind a night out.
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March 1972. We were winning 2-0 but the heavy snow made the ref to decide on abandoning the match after 60 mins
 
Made it to Ayresome Park around 1986 for a postponed game.

Not quite the trial that some others on here have suffered in other posts, as I'd known for hours but went anyway, as I had a mate at Teeside Ploy and we'd got a night on the piss planned.

IIRC, downtown Boro made Sheffield seemed like Monte Carlo.
 
Guesty said:
I remember my Dad telling me this story. He and his mates for the only time ever decided to stay in the pub rather than go to the match cos it was so cold, and were quids when they heard it had been called off because "we think Andy Gray has broken his neck".

My question is this though - why was there a friendly in the Winter months?
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It was quite normal for friendly matches to be played on FA Cup 4th round weekend. We were drawn away to West Ham or Orient in the 4th round but both teams were due to play a replay that weekend. Villa were knocked out of the FA Cup so us and Villa had a blank weekend so a friendly match was agreed. I remember us playing a friendly at Chesterfield on 4th round weekend in 1971 and at Notts County on 4th round weekend in 1976
 
Silent Blade said:
It was quite normal for friendly matches to be played on FA Cup 4th round weekend. We were drawn away to West Ham or Orient in the 4th round but both teams were due to play a replay that weekend. Villa were knocked out of the FA Cup so us and Villa had a blank weekend so a friendly match was agreed. I remember us playing a friendly at Chesterfield on 4th round weekend in 1971 and at Notts County on 4th round weekend in 1976
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We also played Leeds in a 'friendly' on FA Cup 4th round day late 70's. Seem to recall we won 2-1 and the crowd was around 10,000.
 
Silent Blade said:
It was quite normal for friendly matches to be played on FA Cup 4th round weekend. We were drawn away to West Ham or Orient in the 4th round but both teams were due to play a replay that weekend. Villa were knocked out of the FA Cup so us and Villa had a blank weekend so a friendly match was agreed. I remember us playing a friendly at Chesterfield on 4th round weekend in 1971 and at Notts County on 4th round weekend in 1976
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On a similar theme, the 1-0 win v Derby in the great escape season was on 4th round day: it had been snowed off in December and both teams had been knocked out in the 3rd round. That was one of the reasons our 7 game winning run included 5 home matches.
 



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