Blackburn Rovers’ game against Sheffield Wednesday was abandoned due to a waterlogged pitch at Ewood Park. The hosts were leading by a single goal thanks to Yuki Ohashi’s opener when the Championship match was stopped in the second half. Rain was lashing down and the pitch became unplayable, with both sets of players being ordered to leave the field.
After a delay of several minutes, the referee returned to test the bounce of the ball. He quickly realised that it would be impossible to continue the game, with the ball stopping dead upon landing on the sodden playing surface. Eventually, the match was abandoned with the decision being confirmed by the stadium announcer.
It marked the second time in a matter of weeks that a game at Ewood Park had been called off due to a waterlogged pitch. Earlier this season, play was halted with just 10 minutes left when Blackburn were leading Ipswich Town by a single goal.
In that scenario, the match was replayed in full with the Tractor Boys striking late to salvage a dramatic draw in the rescheduled fixture. Blackburn wanted to be awarded the victory but the EFL ruled that a full replay was the only logical course of action.
It seems likely that a re-staging of Saturday’s abandoned game will also be needed, with a precedent having already been set.
After the Ipswich game was called off, Blackburn grounds manager Trevor Wilkin explained that the pitch was simply unable to handle the amount of water it absorbed.
“My view on the Ipswich game, we’ve got to hold our hands up and say the weather beat us. It’s a good opportunity to say that. I know there’s a lot of scaremongering,” said Wilkin in an interview with RoversTV.
“It was absolutely nothing at all to do with the river, this game. It was just the amount of rainfall that we got. We came in on the Saturday morning, myself and Lynsey Talbot, we checked the river, the drains in the river.
“They were working absolutely fine, not a problem. As the day went on, it just got heavier and heavier. It got to the point where it was just saturated and it couldn’t physically take any more water.
“We got the figures for the rainfall the following day and we had over 77 mil of rain, which is over three inches. So you imagine three inch of water across the entire pitch, that’s a lot of water.
“There’s no hiding the fact that the pitch is old. The pitch now is 36 years old. So the old infrastructure, the drainage is old, but that’s irrelevant to the Ipswich game. Facts are facts. We just could not take that amount of water.”
Blackburn’s game against Wednesday was not the only Championship fixture to be abandoned on Saturday afternoon. Earlier in the day, Charlton Athletic’s match against Portsmouth was called off due to a medical emergency in the crowd.
Sadly, the Addicks later confirmed the individual in question had died after being treated by medics in the stadium and rushed to hospital.