Fleetlands facing end of season fixture chaos – but other non-league clubs will be even busier

The Copterman’s final nine games of the Wessex League Division 1 season have been shoehorned into the first 20 days of April.

Put another way, that’s 23.6 per cent of their total league fixtures squeezed into a period of under three weeks.

And to add to the misery, the first of their remaining games - at home to Downton tomorrow - could well be postponed due to a waterlogged pitch.

The club’s Power Monkey Park surface was rendered unplayable on Tuesday, a downpour just before kick off leading to the postponement of the league game with Folland with officials and players already at the ground.

Fleetlands director of football Dean Inman said the club have tried to book artificial pitches elsewhere in a bid to get games on.

They have contacted both Havant & Waterlooville and AFC Stoneham, but there are no spare slots.

Inman told The News: ‘These are interesting times. I’m not sure how we’re going to fit all the games in.

‘It’s frustrating. We asked Havant and Stoneham but they were fully booked. And we can’t just play on any 4G pitch, it’s got to be at a certain level.

‘If we have to, we’ll ask clubs if they want to reverse the fixture if we can’t play at home. We don’t want to, but we just need to play the games.’

As it stands, the final Division 1 fixtures are scheduled for Thursday, April 20 - two days before the Wessex Premier campaign is due to finish.

Fleetlands are due to play on Saturday, Tuesday, Thursday for the remainder of their first season back in the Wessex after being promoted from the Hampshire Premier League.

Seven of their remaining nine Division 1 fixtures are home. And though Fleetlands’ play-off hopes are realistically over, they can still have a say in the promotion and play-off picture.

That’s because four of the six teams above them - leaders Andover New Street, Downton, Newport and New Milton - still have to visit Fortress Lederle Lane.

Since losing their opening home league to Totton & Eling last August, the Copterman have rattled all 11 successive victories.

Last weekend they suffered a 2-0 loss at play-off hopefuls Hamworthy Recreation, a game which saw Callum Dart and Jamie Winter suffer hamstring injuries.

After their league season is completed, Fleetlands still haven’t finished playing – they are due to take on Fareham Town in the semi-final of the Portsmouth Senior Cup on Tuesday, April 25. The winners will face Horndean – who still have eight Wessex Premier fixtures remaining – or AFC Portchester.

Elsewhere at step 6 level, some clubs have an even more ridiculous fixture list than Fleetlands.

In Division 1 of the Combined Counties League, Sandhurst and Brook House still have FOURTEEN league games to play, and Westside 13.

The final games of that division are, according to the Full Time website, scheduled for April 22.

Surely officialdom won’t make those clubs play that many games in such a short space of time? Imagine what Jurgen Klopp would make of it!

Having said that, what would the Liverpool boss have made of Guernsey’s 2012/13 finale, when they had to play their last 20 league games - almost 50 per cent of the entire season - in just 36 days?

The islanders had to play on April 1,5,6,7,9,12,14,16,18,20,21,24,26,27,28 and 30 - and then on four successive days in May, 3,4,5 and 6!

Remarkably, they still finished second in the Combined Counties North table.