LEAGUE SHOULD ‘THROW BOOK AT BEDFORD’
FRUSTRATED Fleet Town jointboss Andy Hunt has called on the Southern League to protect the integrity of the competition and come down hard on Bedford Town after a player walk-out caused their league match to be postponed just 10 minutes before kick-off !
The Blues were left flabbergasted as they were told of the walkout as they were stripped and ready to walk out onto the New Eyrie for yesterday’s Central division clash.
The reason for the revolt has not yet been revealed but it is believed that an internal club matter had forced the Bedford players to issue the club with an ultimatum ahead of the weekend with promises unfulfilled.
And it left Fleet with a thankless 82-mile drive back to Hampshire with nothing to show for their efforts.
The Eagles are now expected to be charged by the Southern League for failing to fulfil a fixture, but Hunt reckons sanctions must now be put in place to prevent this from happening again.
“It’s not good enough,” the Blues chief said. “We hired a minibus for this game as it’s one of our longest trips of the season, and players even left work early to get there.
“We thought it was a bit strange that they weren’t out warming up with us, but it was only when we saw a couple of their players hanging around the dressing room area unchanged that we realised something wasn’t right.
“Still, we kept our pre-match the same but just as we were about to walk out, all kitted up, our chairman [Richard Whittingham] walked in and told us all their players had boycotted the game!
“Apart from a very brief conversation we had with their chairman, we had no official communication at all from Bedford. It was a pretty poor show all round.
“It will be interesting now to see what the league do about this. Bedford have had all week to get their house in order, look at Merthyr, they went to Chesham last week with a youth team and got beat 13-1 – but at least they fulfilled the fixture. This can’t be allowed to happen again.”