EVERYBODY at Worcester City is desperate for Saturday’s FA Trophy match to beat the weather.
The game against Carshalton Athletic at St George’s Lane is vital for the financial situation at the club because we haven’t played at home since December 12.
Home games are the most important to us at the moment as we need to get the fans in and generate some revenue.
The Monday night match against Maidenhead United was postponed and we also had to cancel training on the artificial surface at Brickfields this week so we have not done anything since the Newport County game on New Year’s Day.
But we will be coming in tomorrow night for training, whatever the weather, to try and get some work done, even if it is only for half-an-hour.
As well as the boost to the finances, Saturday’s match gives us a chance to progress into the next round.
However, it will not be easy as Carshalton have some good players and signed Basingstoke defender and captain Joe Dolan recently, so they are assembling a decent squad.
But there’s nothing we can do about the weather. It has decimated the programme in the lower leagues and all clubs are in the same situation.
We lost the Boxing Day game against Newport to the frost and, had the game been a 3pm kick-off then instead of 12.30pm, we might have been able to play.
But it doesn’t matter what time you kick-off off at the moment as no game is going to be on.
Unless you are a Premier League club with under-soil heating, it is a similar picture everywhere.
Even then, clubs have to think about the safety of the fans on the terraces and in car parks.
On the pitch, we were disappointed about the 1-0 defeat at Newport on New Year’s Day and how it came about following the sending off of our left-back Shabir Khan.
The performance was fantastic and I was happy with the way we played.
Both goalkeepers won the man-of-the-match awards for their teams and I think it shows what a good game it was for the neutral.
It could have been a 2-2 or 3-3 draw and that would have been a fair result.
But a lot changed with the sending off of Shabir and that did have a bearing on the result.
That match has gone now and we have to start picking up points to climb away from the relegation zone.
We must keep believing we can do that.
We still have a largely fit and healthy squad but forward Matt Dinsmore has a tight hamstring which is why he was not on the bench against Newport.
Rob Elvins is still struggling with his neck and fellow striker Marc McGregor is recovering from a calf problem which he picked up on New Year’s Day.
The major concern for us now is to get Shabir’s red card overturned otherwise we will lose him for three games and that would be a massive blow.
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