Brighouse Town will have it all to do again this weekend after their ‘overseas’ FA Vase tie was postponed last Saturday.
Town had been drawn away at Newport on the Isle of Wight in the last 32 as they dream of a Wembley final.
The logistics were a nightmare to organise, not to mention being expensive, and following the postponement the clubs will make a second attempt this Saturday.
Town's trip had been planned in minute detail but then the great British weather intervened.
Some of the worst snowfall in recent memory almost brought the country to a standstill at the weekend, let alone decimating the lower League and non-league fixtures.
Town’s chairman Ray McLaughlin said: “I was on the phone with the guy at Newport at regular intervals last Thursday because we were setting off at 8am on Friday.
"He said five centimetres of snow had been forecast but that they wouldn’t get that - he said Hampshire will get the snow but Newport will just get rain. The sea between them usually breaks the weather patterns.
“Then at five past six on Friday morning, I get a text from him and a picture of deep snow. He set off to the ground to do a formal pitch inspection but his car got stuck and he had to abandon it. All the time we have to go through the process and head off to meet the players and team bus.
“We all met around 7.30am and were loading the kit and everyone’s personal gear onto the coach. Then we got the call at 8.30am that the game had been postponed.”
McLaughlin, who had done a lot of the organisation and made the formal bookings, began to ring round to see what he could he salvage and find out just how much the aborted trip had cost the club.
“We knew we had incurred a cost for the coach because it had arrived right on time and was a Doncaster company so it had set off quite early.
"They were wonderful about it because even though we were essentially giving back word after booking the coach for three days, they only charged us £100.
“The ferry trips across to the Isle of Wight on Saturday lunchtime and back to Southampton at 7.30pm were put on hold because they had classed it as a freight crossing. Otherwise there would have been a cancellation fee.
“The hotel at Southampton was next on my list because we had 38 rooms booked for two nights - Friday and Saturday.
"It was a block booking and there should have been a charge but to their credit they waived it and allowed us to move it rather than cancel it. I think it helped that the manager told me some of his staff couldn’t even make it into work that day.
“When the committee at Brighouse went over all the details, we said we had planned for every eventuality.
"It just shows that the best-laid plans are at the mercy of the weather. Fingers crossed we won’t have any problems this weekend!”
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