Referee shortage causes league’s entire fixture list to be scrapped

A North Wales football league has had to postpone its entire programme of matches this Saturday due to a referees’ shortage.

All scheduled games in the Vale of Clwyd and Conwy League are off because of a problem which has hit new heights this season.

Matches being cancelled because of no available referee has become quite commonplace in leagues below tier three in recent campaigns, but never has a full set of games been scrapped before.

Four fixtures in the Premier and five in Division One are postponed. In the Premier, Llanelwy Athletic’s game would have been off anyway as they are involved in a rearranged NWCFA Junior Cup tie with Bangor 1876.

League fixture secretary Andrew Williams informed clubs of the situation in an e-mail this week.

He said: “It’s with regret that this coming weekend the 12th October all games are off. This is due to a massive shortage of referees being available to us.

“At this moment in time we have three refs, and it would be unfair to pick out three games and leave everyone else without a fixture as I know if that would be me I wouldn’t be happy not being chosen.

“This decision wasn’t taken likely but felt we had no choice. On the plus side with Wales playing this weekend players may want to make the most of it . On behalf of the league I can only apologise for the inconvenience.”