Eclipse Forces AFC Turnford to Postpone Match
AFC Turnford expected to be worrying about Cuffley’s front line on Wednesday night. Instead, they were told to worry about the Sun disappearing.
The non-league club, who groundshare at Wormley Rovers Football Club in Wormley, Hertfordshire, were ordered to postpone their Herts Senior County League Premier Division fixture because of the solar eclipse.
The issue wasn’t the opposition. It was the lack of floodlights.
Founder-player Ronnie Bates explained that the game had been scheduled for 19:00 BST, around an hour after the partial eclipse was due to begin.
“We’ve been told if you don’t have floodlights, you have to postpone your game,” Bates said. “I was surprised, but we are just following what has been said.”
The instruction came from the Herts Senior County League, which has been contacted for comment. Hertfordshire FA was also involved in the communication to clubs.
The timing left Turnford taken aback. The celestial event, when the Sun will be almost entirely blocked by the Moon, is set to last around one hour and 50 minutes, starting at about 18:20 and finishing by 20:10, with exact times varying around the world. For a club without lights, that window suddenly turned a routine midweek fixture into a non-starter.
“It’s unusual to see a game called off like that, as we’ve never had it before,” Bates added. “We are starting to lose light in the evenings, but we normally play at 15:00.”
AFC Turnford, formed six years ago by a group of friends from Haileybury Turnford School in Cheshunt, have been climbing the local ladder and documenting their progress on YouTube. They had been eyeing another step forward on Wednesday night. Instead, they joined a growing list of sides forced to reschedule.
Cuffley FC confirmed to the BBC that all clubs in the league had been contacted by the HSCL and Hertfordshire FA and asked to move any fixtures that could not be played under floodlights on Thursday because of the eclipse.
Non-league football is used to postponements for waterlogged pitches, frozen surfaces or high winds. Now, in Hertfordshire at least, it has met a new opponent: the shadow of the Moon.
