Western League decide abandoned Westbury Town v Chard match to be re-played

OFFICIALS from the Toolstation Western League have decided that the match between Westbury Town and Chard, which was abandoned last month due to heavy rain, will be re-played.

On Saturday 16th September, the match was called off with two minutes to spare of normal time plus any injury time, due to adverse weather conditions which had gradually been getting worse as the game went on. The decision to re-play the match has sparked an angry reaction from  Chard, who were leading 4-2 and about to execute Westbury’s first league loss of the season.

However, Westbury Town FC secretary, Greg Coulson said, “We understand Chard’s frustrations and if the shoe was on the other foot I’m sure we would be feeling hard done by, but at the end of the day we all sign up to the league rules at the start of the season and we have to abide by the league’s decisions.

“All we can do now is go down there and make sure we perform better than we did last time. Chard will be up for this even more than they were first time round, they’ve proved that they can beat anyone in the league on the day, so it’s going to be a tough one.

“The decision was never in our hands, we offered a letter to the league when the game was first abandoned, only to be told by the league that it would not be taken into account. Therefore we took a step back and let the board members of the league go about their business.

“It’s good that the decision has been made, it’s been a busy few weeks with the FA Vase match having to be replayed and this decision sat on the back burner. It will be nice to get on with the football now and let’s hope we can get the rest of our fixtures completed without any further replays.”

The date of the replay fixture is yet to be confirmed.