Ice Cold: Southend United Sack Head Groundsman After Match Cancelled Due To Frozen Pitch

Chris Wright

23rd, January 2017

2 Comments

southend-united-bolton-frozen

Southend United have made the somewhat overly-severe decision to sack their groundsman after a frozen pitch caused Saturday’s League One tie against Bolton to be called off.

Ken Hare, head groundsman at Roots Hall for the past 27 years, was dismissed on Sunday after freezing temperatures left the pitch unplayable the day before.

As club statements go, the Shrimpers’ explanatory note was a bit special:

People generally lose their position as a result of not doing their job.

The necessary decision surrounding Mr Hare was a disappointment and of course not taken lightly.

The club also proudly added that they’ve had to resort to firing “very few people” over the past 20 years, even including managers.

Given that temperatures actually dipped as low as -4 degrees in Southend-on-Sea on Friday night, feel free to go ahead and file this one under ‘pretty bloody harsh’.

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2 Comments

  1. Jeremia says:

    Given that apparently Southend’s pitch doesn’t have a soil-heating system, the poor groundsman got sacked for not being God.

  2. maria says:

    Head Groundsman for 27 years, gets sacked after one frozen pitch? something tells me there is more to this than they are telling us.

    Jeremia – Needn’t be a deity. If you know it’s going to be a cold night and you don’t have under-soil heating you can can take measures to stop the ground from freezing.

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