But it was still ‘Plastic Fantastic’ for many clubs and supporters. On January 3rd across Steps 2, 3 and 4 there were 119 games scheduled. Of those 119 games, 62 were postponed, leaving 57 games for fans to enjoy.

Of the 57 games, 40 were played on a 3G or 4G surface, that’s 70% of the games. In fact, at Step 3, 77% of games played were not on grass. Clearly the clubs now with a 3G surface will have benefited financially, especially looking at some of the attendances.

At Step 3 there were more than 2,000 at Folkestone, 1,300 at Billericay and crowds of more than 1,000 at Basingstoke Town, Burgess Hill, Redditch United and Walton & Hersham to name just a few, tremendous support.

You can understand now why so many clubs are switching from grass pitches. How long before we see 70% of clubs with 3G or a 4G pitch?

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THERE’S nothing worse than a blank Saturday.

It’s a heightened risk this time of the year of course what with all the wintery weather. Tick Tock was extremely disappointed as he was looking forward to visiting Bury and the smallest pub in Britain.

Instead, we turned back down the A14 having left early for Bury and called in to what would appear at the time to be the emptiest pub in Britain as the landlord was having a nap and we were the only two in there!

There was only one thing for it, get back to dear old Leiston, grab a fish and chip supper and trip to the local to watch the darts.

As we got to the pub, they only had the Barcelona game on, they clearly didn’t like Luke Littler.

The weekend was fast becoming a complete washout as we headed home sulking, Tick Tock moaning he wish he’d had haddock not cod.

We consoled ourselves however that we had Tuesday night’s mouth-watering Premier Cup clash with Needham to look forward to.

Stop the press…. That was off as well. Whoopy Doo! What a boring week! Thank goodness for the Kettering game this weekend!