RUNCORN Linnets face a near 300-mile round trip this Tuesday (November 24th) to play their FA Vase second round tie at Northern League champions Marske United.

The game was postponed on Saturday due to a waterlogged pitch and Linnets' appeal for it to be rescheduled for this coming Saturday was turned down by the FA Vase Committee.

The club has issued the following statement in light of the decision:

"As you all know, the FA Vase Committee have insisted that we play the game at Marske on Tuesday 24 November.

"As a club we were disappointed in the decision and would like to apologise to all those fans who wanted to make the journey to a new ground but will now be unable to do so.

"Our appeal was based on a number of issues with regard to player health and safety, constraints of work, travelling distance and time on busy motorways, cost implications of postponed games, shortage of time to arrange coach travel and of course the inability of many of our fans to now watch the game.

"The NWCFL was prepared to allow us to cancel our league game on the Saturday to allow the game to take place at a weekend and we were grateful for that support.

"The relevant section of the rules of the competition is as follows:

"'When a first match has been postponed, or is abandoned before the completion of 90 minutes and neither Club being at fault, it shall be played on the same ground: in the Qualifying Competition and First, Second and Third Rounds Proper on or before the following Thursday. The FA may, in exceptional circumstances, approve the playing of postponed or abandoned matches on the following Saturday'.

"We hoped we had made out a case for exceptional circumstances but the FA did not agree.

"We will still look forward very much to our journey to Marske and to making new friends but we express great frustration that the decision has denied many of our fans the opportunity to attend and put unnecessary pressure on players."