SOUTHEND UTD SACK GROUNDSMAN
Due to frozen pitch postponement
League One team, Southend Utd, took the decision to sack their head groundsman of 27 years over the weekend, due to a partly frozen pitch forcing the match against Bolton to be called off.
Local paper the The Southend Echo reported that Ken Hare was dismissed by chairman Ron Martin after a pitch inspection at 11am had found large parts of the pitch at the Roots Hall ground unplayable, forcing hundreds of Bolton fans to return home.
An official statement on the club's website said, "The club did everything possible to enable the game to go ahead by applying covers and heaters to vulnerable areas overnight, but unfortunately some areas of the pitch were unfit to play on."
The club later gave a further statement to The Southend Echo saying, "People generally lose their position as a result of not doing their job."The necessary decision surrounding Mr Hare was a disappointment and of course not taken lightly. "People have been dismissed at this football club over the past 20 years and that even extends to managers.”
The Bolton News cites "reports on the day" which suggested that the top grade of pitch covering had not been used to protect a problematic area of the pitch.
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