Portsmouth Chief: Groundstaff Couldn’t Have Done Anything More
Wednesday, 4th Feb 2026 13:23
Portsmouth chief executive Andy Cullen has insisted his club did everything possible to try to ensure yesterday’s staging of their now-twice-postponed game against the Blues went ahead.
The game succumbed to a waterlogged pitch at 11am yesterday, the original fixture having been called off four hours before kick-off on January 4th due to a frozen pitch.
There has been some scepticism among Town supporters – some serious, some less so – that Pompey may not have overly stretched themselves on either occasion given the lengthy list of injury absentees going into both dates and with their deadline day additions not having been signed in time to play in Tuesday’s match.
But Cullen says the Fratton Park pitch has been hit by significantly more rainfall than had been anticipated during a busy January schedule with Tuesday’s game the first they had been forced to postpone due to a waterlogged pitch for 13 years.
“I think we are victims of what’s happening at the moment in terms of the rainfall on the south coast, with wet warnings over the last few days,” Cullen told the Portsmouth News.
‘We’ve had three matches in 10 days and the team has worked really, really hard. The average rainfall in January over the last five years is 90mm. The rainfall this January has been 205mm – nearly double-and-a-half of the rainfall we would normally expect.
“The ground was totally saturated. We all live in Portsmouth, we know it’s a low-lying island by the sea with a water table which is really, really high. So rain gets here really, really quickly and there’s nowhere for it to run off to.
“All three of our home games since January 25th were potentially under threat. We had Southampton, West Brom and then Ipswich.
“Over the last 10 days we had aerated the pitch, taking it to the depth of four inches so it could assist with faster draining, which also helps with root development.
“We brought in an Air2G2 machine which uses pressurised air which de-compacts the soil and helps with drainage.
“We brought that machine in after Southampton and have been using it constantly. Before the West Brom game, after it, over the weekend and on Monday.
“We also brought in boundary blotters, which remove the surface water. We had those ready to go on Tuesday morning ahead of the game, but it was no use because we couldn’t actually use them until the rain had stopped.
“In addition, we brought in an additional two pitch lights to help with the pitch’s recovery. The team probably spent the best part of nearly 300 hours on the pitch in the last 10 days between them – but the weather has defeated us in the end.”
Cullen added: “The forecast was brutally correct, it just wasn’t going to be feasible to get the game with the guidance from the professionals, who are the ground staff.
“While it wasn’t a decision we wanted to make – we wanted to get the game on – it just wasn’t going to happen. The groundstaff couldn’t have done anything more.”
Photo: Action Images via Reuters
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