Ref was right to call off game - Sunderland boss

Sunderland boss Kevin Ball had no complaints over the decision to abandon the Premiership clash with Fulham.

Referee Mike Riley called a halt 21 minutes into the game with Fulham leading 1-0 after heavy snow and rain left the Stadium of Light pitch waterlogged.

Had the scoreline stayed the same, the Black Cats would have been relegated despite Portsmouth’s 2-2 home draw with Blackburn, but the official had little choice with conditions becoming increasingly dangerous.

“Mike had no choice but to call the game off in the end,” said Ball. “I was standing in the technical area and at times I couldn’t see across the pitch.

“I was getting pelted with – I don’t know whether you would call it snow, ice or God knows what – but they were the biggest lumps I’ve ever been hit with.

“In the end, the safety of the players is of paramount importance, and it was getting to the stage then where I think he had no choice. I think he made the right decision.

“(Fulham boss) Chris (Coleman) and I had a laugh and a chat about it because he was 1-0 up, but he would have no complaints.

“Somebody said would I have felt upset if we were 1-0 up and the game was called off, and I have to say no.”

Sunderland were trailing to Brian McBride’s ninth-minute strike when the game was halted, although that was not soon enough for Black Cats midfielder Rory Delap, who was left with stitches in a head wound and a suspected broken nose after a clash of heads with team-mate George McCartney.

“Whether the weather was a contributing factor to that, I’d have to look at it again, but Rory took a right crack on his hooter and has stitches, and George has a cut as well.

“We had two players down at one time and I couldn’t see who it was. You could not see and we didn’t know whether it was going to change, so he had to call it off.”

Riley, who initially inspected the pitch at 2.30pm and decided to start the game, said he had taken the decision in the interests of the players’ safety.

“Around 2.30pm, I went out to warm up and at that point it was raining very heavily with standing water over both flanks of the pitch,” he said.

“I talked to the groundsman, who advised us that he had been forking the pitch all day, but given the amount of rain we had had in such a short time, there was very little he could do to manage the situation.

“We were hoping the rain would stop, but unfortunately the forecast for the afternoon was more rain, more snow, so we thought we would try to get the game started, hoping the weather would clear up, hoping the players by their actions might kick the surface water away.

“But the longer the game went on, you could see the ball was not rolling, players were sliding and couldn’t keep their footing, and the conditions weren’t improving.

“The only likelihood was that somebody was going to get injured, which is what we don’t want.

“I came across and talked to the fourth official to find out what the latest weather forecast was, and the forecast was the same.

“At the same time, I was talking to both managers. We tried then to carry on, but the conditions didn’t improve and eventually, we had to stop the game because it just wasn’t safe for the players.”