Whitby Town Football Club would like to express its extreme disappointment following the late postponement of Tuesday's game against Guiseley at the Towbar Express Stadium, as well as offer a timeline of events leading up to the decision.

At 11am, the representatives of each club exchanged calls to discuss the prospect of a pitch inspection. At this point the pitch was thawing and softening, and we felt with work had a strong chance of being playable.

As the day went on, club officials decided to push on with getting a referee on standby, due to snow showers for two hours.

Whitby Town officials began contacting referees about a pitch inspection from 7pm on Monday night - starting with the match referee. He was unavailable due to work commitments until 5pm - at which point he would have had an hour’s drive to Whitby from his location.

We spoke to Level 3 referees who regularly carry out pitch inspections, though these were not available - again due to work commitments. With the help of the North Riding FA, we contacted seven referees. Five of these did not answer the phone, and two were unavailable - again due to work commitments.

Another option considered was to submit photographic evidence to the governing bodies, along with an explanation of the above details. While this would be in danger of contrevening Rule 14.2, we felt we may be able to appeal for exceptional circumstances due to the issues we were facing.

However, unlike when the pitch is waterlogged or white over, there was very little in the way of to-the-eye evidence to work with, and a forecast with a temperature that didn’t drop below three degrees until after full-time. With these elements combined, it would have been difficult to make a case for postponement.

We were also prepared to appoint a Level 5 referee in the hope that we could make an early call, but again this was to no avail, meaning our options were exhausted and the decision was left down to when the match officials arrived.

With all this in mind, the club's staff and volunteers had no choice but to carry on working towards the match, knowing an inspection couldn't be done until the match referee arrived at the ground. This included working on the pitch, and ensuring areas of the ground were safe.

The match referee arrived at the ground at 18:10, before commencing his first inspection at 18:20. At this point, he took the decision to wait for the assistant referees to arrive before commencing another inspection with them.

An area of concern to the officials was the linesman's track on the Scratching Shed side of the ground, and a small area on the field. With this, the officials - at 18:50 - asked the groundsman and volunteers to level out the area and he would go ahead and reinspect ten minutes later.

Across the course of this time, the groundsman and volunteers applied sand to the field of play and rolled the area. From 19:00 onwards, the match officials continued to assess the area, while the players warmed up ahead of the 19:45 kick-off. The club's groundsman also offered a number of suggestions to the referee to further help the field, though to no avail.

Both sets of players did fast-feet drills on the area to help break the ground up, then continued their warm-ups in their respective halves of the field. All while the officials continued to assess the field of play and work continued to make the areas of the pitch requested playable. This work continued up until 19:25.

With growing uncertainty as kick-off time approached, a club official asked the match referee at 19:30 if there was a decision, with both sets of players wanting to know whether the game was going ahead or not. The officials requested an extra five minutes, meaning the decision would come with a minimum of ten minutes left up to kick-off.

After a final inspection, the match officials declared the game off at 19:38 due to the pitch starting to freeze over - even though the temperature was three degrees, and there was to be very little change in the conditions according to the forecast.

Initial conversations with the match officials suggested that the goalmouth at the Sea End of the ground was starting to freeze over, and this was why the game was off. However, the postponement form filled in - as required by the Northern Premier League - indicated that it was the linesman track (as previously worked on, on request) that was the reason for the postponement.

We absolutely agree that the safety of players is paramount and accept this. However, with both teams prepared to play the game, and having completed a full warm-up, we expected that the game would be going ahead.

This is ultimately a decision that has ultimately has a massive knock-on effect, on both clubs and both sets of players.

Contracted players will still have to be paid, food and drink has been bought and paid for, that ultimately could not be sold. Over 200 people had entered the ground, most of whom had to be refunded, and the opposition's travel costs to be paid by the football club. Players from both clubs will, once again, have to take time off work for the rearranged fixture.

It is also not the first time that we've seen this happen in the Northern Premier League this season - a case in point being the late postponement of the Warrington Rylands vs Marske United game recently.

As a club, we call on the Football Association and Northern Premier League to review their rules with regards to pitch inspections and the process behind calling games off.

Midweek games are notoriously difficult to get referees at the required level to do a pitch inspection, and we feel that a review of the rules around them need to be reviewed to make it easier for clubs.

While we accept that letting clubs just call games off at their own discretion would set a dangerous precedent, with the technology available is there no way that - in extreme cases where a referee is unavailable to do an inspection in person - clubs can consult with a referee via video call, and the referee fill in the relevant report online?

As a club, the nearest Level 3 officials are based in Scarborough and Pickering, and both work full-time. As do the match referees appointed for fixtures.

Our location makes this even harder in that a referee has at the very least a thirty minute drive to get to Whitby (which can - at times - be in treacherous conditions depending on the weather situation) and if they're at work, there's very little chance they'll be able to get out early enough to do the inspection, with most clubs leaving their ground before 3pm to get to Whitby for the fixture.

Ultimately, a series of events have worked against the club - who tried to do everything in their power to get an earlier decision on the postponement, which has now cost the club substantially.