West Ham have suffered the first call off of the season - before
September is out!
The reserves were due to face Colchester in a friendly at Layer Road on Wednesday, but the match fell victim to a waterlogged pitch and was cancelled.
"They've had a lot of rain apparently, and played last night," says Roger Cross, "and it was only a friendly, I suppose.
"But it is disappointing; we don't want to go weeks without a reserve game.
"It is something we didn't want to happen, having breaks during the season, which is what happened last year.
"When we didn't have a league match we certainly wanted a friendly in its place."
Hardest hit were senior players coming back from injury, and those players who have mainly been on the bench this season.
"We did have players who needed games," says Roger, "people like Hayden Foxe obviously, after his broken finger.
"We certainly needed him to get closer to full fitness, as we did Paul Kitson, who has got over his thigh injury and scored three at Rushden last week.
"Raggy Soma is another that would have played."
The vagaries of the reserve team calendar mean that reserve fixtures are not weekly at the moment, but it is thought unlikely that there will be time to rearrange a match this week for the second string.
* Frank Lampard will not, despite reports, miss the upcoming fixture at home to Chelsea following his sending off for them at the weekend.
The reserves were due to face Colchester in a friendly at Layer Road on Wednesday, but the match fell victim to a waterlogged pitch and was cancelled.
"They've had a lot of rain apparently, and played last night," says Roger Cross, "and it was only a friendly, I suppose.
"But it is disappointing; we don't want to go weeks without a reserve game.
"It is something we didn't want to happen, having breaks during the season, which is what happened last year.
"When we didn't have a league match we certainly wanted a friendly in its place."
Hardest hit were senior players coming back from injury, and those players who have mainly been on the bench this season.
"We did have players who needed games," says Roger, "people like Hayden Foxe obviously, after his broken finger.
"We certainly needed him to get closer to full fitness, as we did Paul Kitson, who has got over his thigh injury and scored three at Rushden last week.
"Raggy Soma is another that would have played."
The vagaries of the reserve team calendar mean that reserve fixtures are not weekly at the moment, but it is thought unlikely that there will be time to rearrange a match this week for the second string.
* Frank Lampard will not, despite reports, miss the upcoming fixture at home to Chelsea following his sending off for them at the weekend.