Town confident game will go ahead (From Swindon Advertiser)

Town confident game will go ahead

6:10am Tuesday 7th February 2012 in STFC News By Gary Rose

CHIEF Executive Nick Watkins is ’99 per cent’ certain that tonight’s crucial Johnstone’s Paint Trophy Barnet will go ahead as scheduled.

Saturday’s League Two game against Burton was called off following a 10am inspection due to a frozen pitch at the County Ground after temperatures across Wiltshire had plummeted to below freezing.

Conditions became milder as the weekend progressed and when the covers were removed yesterday morning, all the frost had thawed.

And Watkins has little doubt that tonight’s game will go ahead as Town look to secure a place in the Johnstone’s Paint Trophy final at Wembley.

He told the Advertiser: “The pitch is looking fine, we took the covers off yesterday morning and the frost has come out of the pitch.

“The referee will inspect the pitch again this morning but I don’t see any reason to doubt the game will go ahead, although you can’t defy nature at the end of the day.

“We will keep an eye on the weather but I am 99 per cent certain that the fixture is in no doubt.”

Over 7,000 tickets have been sold for the game and with tickets priced at just £10 for adults, more are expected to be sold before kick off tonight.

“It would be terrific if we can get 10,000 fans at the ground but I know as of yesterday morning we had over 7,000 sold while Barnet have 400 tickets, though I am not certain how many they have sold,” added Watkins.

“Once people know for sure that the game is on then I am sure we will get a decent walk up tonight.”

Meanwhile, Watkins defended the club’s method of distributing Swindon’s allocation of tickets for the League Two game at rivals Oxford next month.

Just 1,252 tickets were made available for Town fans and those quickly sold out on Saturday morning.

However, some fans who had spent hours queuing only to miss out on tickets were disappointed that they had been beaten to tickets by people who had instead ordered them over the phone.

“You have to make tickets available for sale over the telephone because there are people who are not as mobile and could not possibly have got down to the ground but would like to go to the game,” added Watkins.

“There were some disabled supporters who came and queued and that was fantastic while there were supporters who camped out overnight, and that was amazing.

“However, 68 per cent of our supporter base lives outside the Swindon area so we had to make tickets available over the phone.

“With the combination of people turning up and people ordering over the phone there were always going to be some disappointed fans.

“And while I would love to please as many people as possible, you cannot please all the people all of the time in football.”