St Albans City manager Ian Allinson feels the referee should not be crucified for the decision to call off his side’s game at Hungerford Town just 15 minutes before kick-off – although the timing of it was the one disappointing thing.

Having made the trip to Berkshire they were met by an already sodden pitch following an overnight frost and persistent rain throughout the morning but both sides were still going through their warm-up while the officials were deliberating.

And they made their decision at 2.45pm leaving both teams and their supporters frustrated.

But Allinson was in a philosophical mood about the decision.

He said: “It’s strange because it was 2.45pm when the referee made the decision but for me it’s no worse now than it was at 2 o’clock or 1 o’clock when we turned up.

“There is water lying in areas of the pitch and it is quite heavy and the referee felt it was quite dangerous in terms of the players’ safety and postponed the game.

“He has to make a decision and I don’t think anyone should crucify him for that.

“I just felt it was a bit late and should have been made earlier.

“But you can see from the warm-up areas the pitch has cut up and as it is muddy it’s turned into a bit of a quagmire.”

He did feel the game could have started and probably finished although whether the quality would have been worthy of a paying public was doubtful.

However, with Saints in such good form he was also frustrated that they didn’t have the chance to extend their run further, something which will now have to wait until a trip to Welling next Saturday.

He said: “I said to the players that this is where you have to dig deep, make sure you’ve got the right footwear and make sure you’re up for the battle.

“And I asked them before the game ‘if you’re not up for it you need to let me know now’ but they were all ready.

“Welling are one of those sides that will be looking to catch us up.

“We’ll go there having not played in over a week, which is disappointing as I just think we were getting a bit of form.

“But we’ve got a week to prepare and the one thing we can’t do is let them win the game and catch us up.

“We’ve got no injuries at the minute so that’s good.”