Pic: Liversedge FC
THE terrible weather over the past few months has hit a host of Non-League clubs hard but not many have suffered as much as Northern Counties East League side Liversedge.
The Yorkshire outfit have not played a game at their Clayborn home since the 4-3 victory against Barton Town Old Boys back on October 31.
Their game at Brigg Town on Saturday will be their ninth successive away fixture and the Step 5 club have felt the repercussions of four months without hosting a match
They have slipped to the bottom of the league and have as many as 11 games in hand on their rivals with 11 home games still to fit in before the end of the season.
Tuesday night’s game against Clipstone was postponed due to an “unsafe playing surface” and coach Darren Attwood said: “It’ll be 122 days if we get to play at home on Tuesday against Retford. It’s really frustrating at the minute and the club is starting to struggle financially.
“The game being called off last Saturday cost us around £300. The officials had turned up so we had to pay for those as well as hospitality and food.
“We’re not a club that is open Monday to Friday so if we’ve got no games then we have no revenue coming in and it’s a struggle.”
The club have applied for a grant to help their pitch drainage but have been knocked back and Sedge are seven points adrift at the foot of the table ahead of Saturday’s trip to fellow strugglers Brigg Town.
They face a big fight to retain their Step 5 status and a crammed fixture list with their 18 remaining league games scheduled to be played by the end of April.
Attwood added: “It’s been about 12 years since the pitch has been altered. The drainage that was put in is working but it runs the length of the pitch and there’s nothing tying it in running the width of the pitch.
“We’ve applied to Sport England for a grant to do that work but reluctantly they’ve knocked us back due to us being a one team, one pitch facility.
“Every game is a cup final for us now and the lads are absolutely desperate to play. We prepare, we do everything we need to do and at the last minute, the game gets called off.
“We spoke to Ossett Town about playing there but we’d be paying to host the games and wouldn’t get any of the money taken in from the bar or anything like that.
“We’ve struggled to get any kind of momentum going. We’ve lost some players because other teams can offer them games and we can’t.”
