The big freeze, bees and ham & cheese: 10 bizarre match postponements

By Richard Aikman in Mirror Football Blog

Published 15:46 26/10/09

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Blackburn Rovers have confirmed that their Carling Cup match with Peterborough will go ahead on Tuesday night despite the fact that half the team have gone down with Swine Flu .

Aside from the fact that it is ironic that Sam Allardyce's side should be affected by the disease, given that he used to manage the Trotters, the whole episode got MirrorFootball thinking about strange reasons for the postponement of football matches.

1) Swine Flu
Blackburn Rovers might not let a bout of pig cold hold them back but the French are a different animal. This weekend's Ligue 1 match between Olympique Marseille and Paris St Germain was postponed and the whole PSG team quarantined when three players were diagnosed with the H1N1 virus. How did the sympathetic French supporters take to the news, I hear you ask? By rioting, of course. Several people were injured and one fan had leg surgery after being hit by a car as our cross-channel cousins gave vent to their frustration. Police said there was no serious damage - apparently just a slight dent to the wing mirror.

2) The Big Freeze
According to MirrorFootball's dad, winters are not nearly as severe as they used to be back in his day. And MirrorFootball Snr, it seems, is right. The Big Freeze of 1963 was so harsh it brought football to a standstill, for almost SIX weeks. Heavy snow fell from early December and there was no thaw until mid-March as clubs tried everything they could to beat the cold midwinter. Blackpool used flame-throwers, Chelsea used a tar-burner, Leicester erected a tent over Filbert Street - and Manchester United used a hairdryer. OK, scratch that last bit.

3) The Fog
Fog has been the reason for matches being cancelled since time immemorial - well, January 14, 1911 to be more precise. For twas on this day that a pea-souper descended upon London town causing the postponement of Woolwich Arsenal's FA Cup first round match against Clapton Orient. Matters came to a head when the Woolwich Manager - a certain A. Wenger claimed that he "couldn't really see" an incident in the area that denied Clapton a stonewall penalty.

4) The Heat
Football matches have fallen foul of all manner of adverse whether conditions but rarely has heat stopped play. But that's exactly what happened in Australia in February 2004. Much to the disappointment of FIFA President Sepp Blatter, who once said women should play in "more feminine clothes like they do in volleyball" before suggesting they "wear tighter shorts", the Australia XI playing in women's football's Australia Cup in Brisbane decided against wearing bikinis as temperatures soared above 40 degrees celsius. Instead, Australia v Korea took place the following night in appropriate attire. Blatter sort of got his wish, though, when the Matildas stripped for a naughty calendar . Now that really was smouldering.

5) Fire
Things got even more heated in Holland when the Dutch league match between Groningen and Ajax Amsterdam was postponed last year after fans set fire to paper in the stands. One person was slightly injured by burns, three others were taken to hospital for checks and a total of 19 people were treated for smoke inhalation. It seems nobody told Groningen fans that Ajax is a flammable substance.

6) Lightning
One minute the two Premier League teams from Johannesburg were running around on the pitch - the next half of them were writhing around in agony. No this was not a Didier Drogba impersonation contest but the result of some of the players Jomo Cosmos and Moroka Swallows having been struck by lightning. Fortunately, no one was killed in the incident and in fact members of the team that were two goals down at the time were accused of deliberately collapsing to get the match called off. An elaborate ruse indeed. If it was - it worked.

7) Bees
The World Cup qualifier between Mexico and El Salvador had to be temporarily halted when a swarm of bees invaded a goalmouth at the Azteca Stadium earlier this month. The match was barely three minutes old when the insects took refuge inside the goalposts at the EL Salvador end. Play was held up for around six minutes as officials used fire extinguishers to clear the insects. The real sting, though, was in Mexico's tails (sorry) as the hosts went on to win the match 4-1 and secure a place in the 2010 World Cup finals in South Africa.

8) Floodlights
When the matches between West Ham and Crystal Palace in 1999 and Wimbledon and Arsenal in 1997 were suspended because of floodlight failure no-one suspected anything was awry other than a loose bit if wiring. It soon emerged, though, that the blackout was quite literally the result of dark arts at work. A Far Eastern betting ring ensured that the plug was pulled in order to make big money on the result. In Asia, if the match is in the second half when it’s abandoned, then there’s a payoff on the result as it stands when stopped. The culprits, however, were caught - which was a shame because it was a great way to stop Frank Lampard's annoying goal celebration .

9) A sandwich
Food at football matches has never exactly been Michelin star standard but neither has it ever been the cause of a postponement. Not until 1996 that is, when the Under-21 European Championship qualifying clash between England and Poland was delayed until 10pm due to a small, foil-covered “suspect package” being spotted by an eagle-eyed steward in a bin in the lower tier of the John Ireland Stand at Molineux. In came an army unit from Hereford and after an x-ray proved to be ‘inconclusive’ - no one thought of opening the foil up - a controlled explosion took place.

10) Lasagne
OK so the match wasn't postponed but Tottenham did try to get their crunch league match against West Ham postponed after eight first-team players went down with food poisoning on the eve of their final league match of the Premier League season. The match had particular importance as a win would have seen them pip fierce rivals Arsenal to a top-four finish. Alas for Spurs - undone, it was alleged, by a dodgy lasagne - they lost 2-1 to the Hammers and Arsenal beat Wigan 4-2 in their final match at Highbury to clinch a place in the Champions League by two points.

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