Blackburn Rovers: Ewood Park pitch issues need urgent attention

Once is enough, twice is too many – Blackburn Rovers’ Ewood Park pitch has become a real problem.

For the second time this season a match has been abandoned.

In September, it was the best part of 80 minutes before the referee was left with no choice but to call a halt to a match against Ipswich, and on Saturday it was pretty much an hour in when Ruebyn Ricardo brought the Blackburn and Sheffield Wednesday players from the field.

To be fair to the official, he gave the ground staff a 10-minute window to remove as much excess water as they could from the playing surface, but they were fighting a losing battle.

In Rovers’ 150th anniversary year, Ewood Park has been anything but home sweet home.

Yes, the results are down to the management and the players, but it’s only right to say that some of the circumstances going against them are beyond their control.

In both matches that have been abandoned, they’ve been in front at the time of the premature whistle.

That must anger and disappoint Valerien Ismael and his players in equal measure.

Of course, in both games, the result was by no means guaranteed, particularly with Rovers’ tendency to concede late on.

The circumstances of both games not reaching the distance need a thorough internal investigation.

The word used by supporters on their way home was more often than not “embarrassing”, and you can understand why.

Just eight miles down the road, Accrington Stanley hosted 120 minutes of FA Cup second-round action plus a penalty shootout.

And 13 miles away Preston North End completed their fixture with Wrexham without issue.

Less than 25 miles away, AFC Fylde completed a 1-0 victory over Merthyr Town in the National League North.

It’s pretty clear that something is wrong and needs to be rectified with some urgency.

Who is to say that this will be the last time that it happens?

The infrastructure of the pitch is dated – it was put down 36 years ago and like most things, technology has moved on considerably in that time.

A new pitch system costs a lot of money and it’s down to the owners, the Venkys, to decide if they want to foot a sizeable bill.

For those not familiar with Ewood Park, being so close to the River Darwen makes the stadium’s drainage system particularly vulnerable during periods of heavy rainfall, as the water outlet from the pitch flows into the river.

A swollen river prevents the pitch from draining effectively, resulting in a waterlogged surface.

However, head groundsman Trevor Wilkin confirmed this wasn’t the case in September when the Ipswich game was abandoned, it was the sheer amount of rainfall to blame, and now we await the findings of what happened on Saturday.

The rain was torrential and constant.

The half-time interval seemed to speed up the process as what looked perfectly playable in the first half clearly wasn’t after the restart, and the right decision was reached.

What the EFL makes of it also remains to be seen.

The only other fixture to be abandoned this weekend was at Rochdale, who have well-publicised issues with waterlogging.

So much so that they are going through a mid-season rebuild process which will see them temporarily set up base at Accrington Stanley, whose owner Andy Holt financed a reconstruction of their Wham Stadium pitch in 2019.

After waiting 10 weeks to get back to parity with the rest of the division, in terms of games played, Blackburn Rovers are once again left to play catch-up.