"First Goddamn Week of Winter"

So said the character of R.J. MacReady, played by Kurt Russell in director John Carpenter's1982 body horror classic, "The Thing."  Stranded in Antarctica, standing in the ruins of an exploded helicopter alongside the corpse of a murdered Norwegian, unaware that a monstrous shape-shifting alien parasite is about to kill all of his colleagues, MacReady bemoans the commencement of the annual cold season.

And yet, MacReady's reaction seems mild when compared to a number of Poppies supporters the past week over the postponement of a couple of games of semi-professional football.

We genuinely do appear to have a smattering of supporters who seem to believe we should have a dispensation from frozen conditions and that any fixture cancellation is a complete and utter failing of the club.  The perennial subject of "The Sheets" is raised once again.  Not that we really know what "The Sheets" entail or what they can protect us from.  I'm pretty certain that over the years I've read people on social media bemoaning our lack of "The Sheets" when we've lost games to frost, snow, rain, drought or even the opposition still being involved in the later rounds of the Trophy.

With League One and League Two games tumbling to the cold today, despite, no doubt, sheets galore being deployed, one has to wonder about the basic economics of such an investment for a club at our level.  I may be miles out, but I seem to recall a figure IRO 20K mentioned somewhere for sheets that may or may not allow your game to proceed.  Assuming, of course, you can call upon a small army of volunteers to lay and then remove the said sheets over the course of the week building up to the game.  Having once helped with such an operation at f*cking Non Park of all places, I can attest to this being hard work, and certainly not achievable in 5 minutes.  And when you are heaving acres of heavy fabric you get a better sense of just how large football pitches are.

But none of this means anything when social media commentators start bitching about a game being off that, in all probability, they might have swerved themselves anyway because it was too cold.  Usually on the Thursday before a prospective postponement some bright spark will suggest the Club magic up some sheeting and wonder why we hadn't already bought some, bloated as we are with FA Cup run money.  A handful will bemoan why we don't have Championship-level contingencies in place to protect a UCL level pitch.  A few will throw the odd accusation around about the club not fancying playing.  The odd dullard will choose this moment to announce they are going to watch Harborough Town today anyway....

The upshot is the club DOESN'T have frost sheets.  Nor the manpower to deploy them.  Given the amount of League One games succumbing today it is doubtful "The Sheets" would have saved today's game anyway.  So, stay home, knock the thermostat up a degree or two, dig out that half-full bottle of Advocat you couldn't entirely force down your Aunt at Christmas and get uber-eats up on your speed dial.  At 3pm, fire up the VCR and slip your ancient "John Carpenter's The Thing" cassette in and crank up the telly.  Believe me, the guys in the movie are in for an almost as bad a 90 minutes than we were going to endure against Alvechurch.

"Couple of pints of lager please Gary"