By Jon Couch
NATIONAL League chief executive Michael Tattersall admits Chester fans have “every right to be aggrieved” after Saturday’s game at Solihull Moors was postponed at the 11th hour.
The season curtain-raiser was called off just 24 hours before kick-off owing to safety concerns to Moors’ Damson Park ground.
Blues fans were left enraged by the decision as many had purchased pre-paid train tickets to the Midlands, leaving them out of pocket, while manager Jon McCarthy’s pre-season plans ahead of the big season opener were thrown out of the window.
And the mood of the fans wasn’t helped when Moors boss Liam McDonald admitted that the National League had asked the club not to elaborate on the exact reason the game had been postponed.
Now, in an interview with the Chester Chronicle, Tattersall has finally spoken out and admitted he has a great deal of sympathy with the travelling fans who were preparing to make the trip.
“We are all football fans and what happened was unacceptable as many of those fans would have paid good money on train tickets and also been looking forward to the season starting on August 5, as it should have,” he said.
“We acted as soon as we could over this. Once we found out my first call was to Chester to explain the situation and we notified them at the earliest possible opportunity. Had we been given more notification ourselves then we could have looked into an alternative solution.
“But given the lateness of the situation then Chester FC fans were let down and we fully understand their anger and their frustration over the matter.”
Tattersall says the National League must now determine whether Solihull are in breach of rule 8.37 which states that any club without just cause to fulfil an engagement to play a competition match on the appointed date shall be liable to a maximum of three points deducted or, at worst, expulsion from the competition.”
“It’s too early to say what, if any, action will be taken,” added Tattersall.
“We are not in possession of all the facts and it wouldn’t be right to make any assumptions. We are in the process of speaking to the relevant people to ensure we get to the bottom of this and find out exactly what happened. Only then will we be able to discuss next steps. We hope to make progress this week.
“Of the greatest importance at the moment is ensuring that Solihull Moors are able to host Barrow on August 15.”
