Dangerous pitch left us no option - Tony Mowbray

Feb 12 2012 Sunday Sun

BORO boss Tony Mowbray was left frustrated after the Teessiders clash at a frozen Ipswich was abandoned after 37 minutes.

The Portman Road pitch had earlier just scraped past TWO pitch inspections before it was decided to go ahead with the match.

“On reflection it probably shouldn’t have been played,” he said.

“Beforehand it was touch and go but I wasn’t going to argue with the decision to go ahead because we had made a long trip and the fans were already coming into the ground.

“But by the time we had kicked off temperatures had dropped and it was very obvious very quickly there were problems.”

Ipswich and East Anglia had shivered through a Baltic blast overnight with temperatures plunging to minus 14 and forecasts suggested it would struggle to even reach zero by kick-off.

The pitch had been covered by a giant dome and an 11.15am inspection attended by both managers and officials had passed it fit – although the ref decided to check again closer to kick-off.

With the covers off a second inspection took place a 2pm and while most of the pitch was playable a strip down one flank in the shadow of the main Britannia Stand remained problematic.

A hard and slippy ten yard strip was to prove the contentious surface as not only were players struggling to stay upright, the linesman was forced to run yards inside the touchline.

Within seven minutes it was obvious that players were struggling to keep their feet on a bone hard pitch and both managers had an heated exchange with referee Dean Whitestone.