Club Statement On postponement Of The Whitby Game

Despite a certain amount of rumour & conjecture on social media, here is a factual timeline of events leading up to the postponement of the match at Whitby Town on Tuesday 11th October.

Following news coming to light on Saturday morning of the Southern League allowing 3 Clubs to postpone their respective midweek fixtures ahead of the FA Cup 4th Qualifying round, the Football management team asked if this was possible in our circumstances in order to allow for additional player preparation and so match that of Buxton who have no midweek game?

• Sat 8th Oct 11.38am – As there is nothing prescriptive in the NPL rules, an e-mail enquiry was issued to the NPL Secretary & Chair as to whether the NPL Board could grant any dispensation in this instance.
• Sat 8th Oct 9.32pm – As both respective Clubs exited the FA Trophy, an e-mail enquiry made to Whitby Town to see if they were agreeable to change the Tuesday 11th fixture to the now vacant date for the next Trophy round of Saturday 29th Oct, citing a potentially larger attendance and offering to kick off at 2pm if that helped on lighting costs..
• Sun 9th Oct 9.20am – Text from Whitby Secretary which stated they would send an e-mail to confirm, but looked like they didn’t want to change from Tuesday – Hyde Uniteds view is that is entirely Whitby Town’s prerogative.
• Sun 9th Oct 1.26pm – As no reply was received, an e-mail reminder was issued to the NPL Sec & Chair and also stated we had approached Whitby Town, but they were not inclined to agree to the request. The NPL Chair said to expect a reply from the Secretary on Monday morning (10th).
• Sun 9th Oct 8.17pm – Email from Whitby Match Secretary formally stating they had considered our reasons and offer but wished to proceed with the fixture.
• Sun 9th Oct 9.23pm – Email from NPL Sec stating NPL agreed to postpone the fixture and would advise Whitby and other parties – this email was picked up Monday morning (10th) by which time news was out via other sources!

The Club will be writing further to the NPL on this matter, but we made the enquiry in good faith and as per our Managers request, as we weren’t certain this could be allowable.

Our only other experience of this type of situation was when the NPL agreed to postpone the fixture prior to our FA Cup 1st Round tie v MK Dons in 2017, which was a high profile game on TV of course.