It was meant to be Bradford City women’s long-awaited return to the pitch after yet another postponement due to the Coronavirus pandemic, however, unfortunately for Bradford, the weather had other ideas. The game was meant to see Bradford taken on Chorley women but it was always going to be questionable thanks to the rainfall in Bradford since Saturday night.
Whilst driving over to the game we were wondering if it was actually going to take place as the roads were bad and the history the pitch at Eccleshill has of being waterlogged it got us wondering if we were going to arrive at an abandoned game. When we arrived at the ground about 20 minutes away from kick-off the pitch didn’t look too in fact the goal line and around the centre circle just looked like a boggy mess. It definitely surprised us when the teams came out to start the game as conditions just got worse and didn’t look like they were going to let off any time soon.
With both teams not having played since the start of the second lockdown due to the league postponements I was intrigued to see how the break would have affected both sets of players as it can’t be helpful with the stop start aspect of this season. But with how City had started to progress before the enforced break it was always going to be interesting to see how things would go on the first game back. There was a steady start from both sides with City moving the ball well however, in the early minutes City were awarded a free-kick, the referee called both captains over and eventually called to abandon the game. It was strange how he didn’t seem to consult the managers about his decision but at the end of the day conditions were getting worse and the game possibly shouldn’t have kicked off in the first place.
Bradford are due to play Barnsley on Sunday who played their first game back today so it is going to be interesting to see if that game they have played will have any impact on the pace of the game or if it is going to work in City’s favour as they will have fresher legs going into the game.
Whilst we might have to wait another week to see City back in full action I guess that isn’t a long time compared to the delays we have had so far this season. At least we got to see the ball kicked around for a few minutes before the game was called off, let’s just hope we don’t see this happening too much or games are just going to start piling up for the clubs.