Buckle fancies a winter break

Hatters: Luton chief Paul Buckle admitted he would be in favour of a winter break after seeing Town’s game at AFC Telford United on Saturday postponed due to a waterlogged pitch, writes Mark Wood.

He said: “Personally I think when you look outside at the weather, certainly at the lower levels it’s hard to train.

“Our pitches are not in great nick, I can tell you that at the training ground. Dickie’s (groundsman Richard Bird) worked hard to try and get them right.

“You train on astro-turf one minute, you’re training on a flooded pitch the next.

“And it must be a nightmare for people travelling.

“Logistically let’s all just have a rest at Christmas shall we and maybe have a break and get some quality football in.

“If you look back at the Newport game I wouldn’t want to be playing on a pitch like that every week.”

And although frustrated by the cancellation, he praised the Bucks for calling it off early.

He said: “I think on everyone’s part it’s frustrating. The supporters, the players, myself, the staff, everyone, because we don’t want to have games cancelled.

“I just hope that not too many people left. I do know a couple of supporters left.

“And it causes a lot of disruption to people, the supporters, and I think sometimes you forget how many people travel to a game, especially Luton games.

“It’s a real pain for everyone at this time of the year when a game’s getting called off.

“It’s not ideal, but we’re keeping the players nice and sharp ready for the Boxing Day game.

“Credit to Telford, they deserve a pat on the back for that, because they dealt with that early.

“They saw that the weather was not looking great all day. I can’t really remember a time when so many games have been called off for rain.

“You normally expect some icy pitches like we got up at Newport, but it’s not an easy time when games are called off, and certainly now we are hopeful to get the game on on Boxing Day and start playing some games in the league.”

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