This is from the official L37 statement
In addition Limerick 37 would like to confirm that the team arrived in the ground at 6pm above the requisite 90 minutes before kick off and were forced to sit in the changing rooms for over an hour waiting for access to warm up...................
........At this stage the team manager had already instructed his players that they were not in a position to fulfil the fixture as they were not in a position to complete their 60 minute warm up routine that they carry out for each and every game.
The kick off was 8 o'clock, you do the maths and tell me if there is something not right here
Last edited by oldyouth; 08/10/2008 at 9:03 AM.
For all the latest League of Ireland news visit www.extratime.ie
For all the latest League of Ireland news visit www.extratime.ie
For all the latest League of Ireland news visit www.extratime.ie
I see John Gill is now throwing his 5 cents worth behind Wexford, and getting involved in a matter that is of no concern to him. The media seem to be of the opinion that Wexford and Mick Wallace are the injured party here and I think that the club could do worse than have Mike Kerley make a statement of some description on the matter. His refusal to do so just adds more fuel to the fire.
The sad thing about all of this is that there has been months and months of ball breaking effort and hard work done by people like Kieran Judge, Trevor Beacom and others that now is going to be forgotten and ridiculed. You can't blame clubs like Wexford, Dundalk or anyone for now criticising Jackman because it is a dump, and does deserve criticism. But all of this is coming to light now because of this situation which should have been handled better on the night by Kerley. He shouldn't have boarded that bus...he should have played the martyr and moaned later. Even if he felt there was H&S issues with the back pitch lighting, he still refused a 40 minute warm up on the main pitch and got the team to board the bus and go home. Thats going to be a sticking point when the FAI make any decision, and one that will ultimately go against us.
Yeah, Mick seems to be going for it alright. I'm a footballing man and I don't like victories not earned on the pitch. Having said that, I (obviously) have an opinion on where blame lies and I think L37 must take the bulk it
As for the dressing room incident, we don't have armed guards on them, it was perfectly bright at 6pm if your lads wanted to go on the training pitch or walk around, go on the astros, have a bit of pasta etc
Wallace said limerick have been complaining about the facilities, where?? its the lighting on the back pitch was the problem, not the rest of the facilities there.
i'm not defending the decision not to play the game at all but if limerick had warmed up on the back pitch and a player got injured people would be saying kerley should have spoke up earlier if he was not happy with the training facility on the night and should have asked for use of the main pitch.
For me Mick Wallace has turned from somebody who loved the sound of his own voice but was basically ok into a small, small, petty little man in the last couple of days.
'Kiss of death for the league', 'best facilities in the country'. If he keeps this up he'll choke to death on his own delusional rhetoric and they can scatter his ashes over Ferrycarraig if the pitch can take it. And at this stage I'd shed no tears.
Regardless of whatever sanctions we're hit with (and I agree with JoeSoap, by leaving we've left ourselves open to punishment) Wallace deserves a hefty fine of his own by throwing such an infantile tantrum through the media.
Query: Have The Mail or The Indo, who are both falling over themselves to sneer at the situation, EVER run a positive piece on this league.
The ball is round and has many surprises.
Shane Tracey was carrying that injury before the game. It was not a result of the pitch in any way that it occured in the warm up it could have happened anytime. The second pitch we have is UEFA standard as I said and if we put a perimeter fence around it and permanent dug outs on it then we would be able to play first team games on it as well. It would still be well above the standard of many league grounds and I am sure many of your players would agree with that.
I have no problem with people criticising and blaming facilities but there have to be facts to back it up not just what you think in your head.
On the point of players getting injured in warm up. Over the past two seasons we have had 3 injured in warm ups on another clubs pitch and have had some pull up with injury on our own pitch and these things happen it is part of football. We just get on with it.
Gill: "I don't want to kick Limerick when they're down, but we actually had to change in a hotel because you couldn't swing a cat in their dressing rooms..."
Well if they'd used the dressing rooms for getting dressed in and hadn't decide to test the water by swinging an innocent animal by the tail I'm sure they'd have been sufficient.
SO now what? It's been stated that the FAI are awaiting written statements form both clubs and though it seems clear that we'll be docked points how far reaching can this really be? What kind of sanctions are we looking at here? Will L37's ground have to stand up to rigorous examination due to allegations made in the aftermath of a quarrell? Will Wallace really be reprimanded in any tangible substantive way?
We tend to believe that words enable thought. But words can also substitute for thought.
- Richard A. Posner
We'll probably get a fine and Wexford will get a walkover, doubt we'll get points deduction to be honest
Wexford will get a slap on the wrist for Wallace being a clown and hopefully the FAI will have the backbone to tell Wallace that opposition players have a right to use the main pitch for their prematch warm up
To be fair though I dont think thats up to them is it? If Wexford want teams to use another picth for warm ups I think thats fair enough ........as long as they sort their lights out.
I've lost all respect for Wallace following his comments over the past few days (I did have a lot of admiration for what he's doing with Wexford Youths). He seems to have conveniently forgotten its not the first time we've had to come away from there because of lighting issues.
LTID
A couple of questions that maybe people know the answers to......
1. Does a team have to be allowed to warm-up on the main pitch, if they request to do so?
2. Is there a minimum time which a team must be allowed in order to complete their warm-up? Were Limerick given that time?
That would work too, if the practice pitch had match standard lighting then there wouldn't be much of a problem (I'd still say that away teams should be allowed get a feel for the pitch before hand, but that could be put to one side).
1. I doubt there's a rule as I'd assume everyone else would assume that the home club would be gracious enough to accept the request. Furthermore most clubs don't have a second pitch nearby to push a team on to so it's not really an issue for them that would be brought up
2. Different teams have different warm ups so I'd say there's no set time. We weren't given enough time though, Wallace only accepted our request 35/40 mins before kick off, and at that stage our players weren't even togged out. Even if we shortened our warm up you'd have been looking at an 8.30/8.45 kick off, which would have inconvienced everyone concerned (including the fans that Wallace claims to care about so much), and might not have been sanctioned by the ref. That's where we fall down in my opinion. When Wallace relented we should have said to the ref, right here's our normal schedule, you can either push the kick off back by an hour/hour and a half, or call off the game and reschedule it. Then we could have logged an official complaint with him to include in his match report and we could have got on to the FAI about it the next day
Last edited by jebus; 08/10/2008 at 12:38 PM.
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