Chelsea v Liverpool Women - Abandoned

[Peter Grove]

Some of that makes sense, but I'm not sure I buy that a pitch that was "absolutely playable" at 11:30 wasn't playable an hour later. Especially as the temperature in London was rising at that time, not going the other way.

The explanation from Steinhaus-Webb seems to account for what happened though, and it sounds plausible to me.

When the teams came for the line-up, there was a slight change in the surface because the heating made it humid on the top.

[...] with this thin layer of humidity, it deteriorated again. It made a thin layer of hard surface on top very quickly, so after six minutes the referee made the tough decision to abandon the match.

So it sounds like the humidity resulting from the heating caused the surface in that particular area to refreeze in the time between the referee passing the pitch fit to play, and the time he had to abandon.

 

[PinnerPaul]

It was only one touchline, presumably where the pitch was shielded from the sun by the stand. They probably didn't warm up there.

Given the perilous stae of the pitch, unplayable 4 hours previously, and as Matt Beard said, every weather forecast saying the temperatures were not going to rise, surely might have been prudent to visit the worse area of the pitch during the warm up?

I know, we rightly, on here, look for reasons beyond the obvious, but think that's streching it a bit.

Also clip I saw showed a player clearly slipping over in one of the penalty areas and then rubbing her thigh like she had fallen over on one of the old 1g astro pitches!