Snow plays havoc with football and racing – but rugby goes ahead

• Northern Ireland's match with Russia postponed
• Second day of Lincoln meeting called off at Doncaster

by Chris Cook 1 month ago

Several football matches were called off and horse racing in Britain was reduced to a single meeting, a low-value all-weather card at Southwell, on Saturday as snow and freezing temperatures again did their worst.

The most prominent casualty was Northern Ireland's World Cup qualifier against Russia, which had been delayed due to bad weather on Friday, but was postponed on Saturday morning.

Earlier the scheduled raceday at Doncaster – which was due to stage the year's second day of Flat racing on turf with the Lincoln Handicap as the feature race – fell at 6am when the clerk of the course, Roderick Duncan, found two to three inches of snow on the track. "It's still falling now," he reported. "Daytime temperatures are forecast to stay at or below freezing and further snow is forecast today."

The Lincoln card will be switched in its entirety to next Saturday, 30 March. No further Flat racing on turf is scheduled to take place before then.

League football also suffered as Sheffield United were forced to abandon their fourth-versus-second npower League One clash against Brentford, as was Shrewsbury's meeting with Oldham. In League Two the games at Rotherham (v Exeter), Burton (v Wycombe), Chesterfield (v Plymouth), Crawley (v Crewe) and Port Vale (v Aldershot) all went the same way.

Rochdale's meeting with Southend was the next to fall foul of the elements, with the club citing safety concerns on their official Twitter feed.

North of the border games between Elgin and Clyde and Annan and Queen's Park were wiped out.

A jumps card at Newbury was also abandoned on Saturday morning when snow fell after the course passed an initial inspection. "We've taken a lot more snow than we expected and it's still coming down now," said the clerk, Richard Osgood. "All we can see right now is snow and the course is unraceable."

Other jumps fixtures at Bangor, Kelso and Stratford were called off earlier in the week. In a game attempt to provide some live action, Channel 4 will screen four races from Southwell, mixed with a preview of the Grand National on 6 April.

However, all four Aviva Premiership rugby union fixtures on Saturday will go ahead as planned – with Sunday's game between Saracens and Harlequins also expected to get the all-clear.