It is not often that forward thinking leads to a match being postponed but in a roundabout way that is what happened with the Dennyboys’ home derby fixture this week.

Thackley were due to host neighbours Albion Sports in the Toolstation Northern Counties East Premier Division last Tuesday.

However, damage to one of the floodlight pylons meant the game was postponed, with the league citing ‘health and safety concerns’ as the reason.

The lights were not damaged by the weather, nor were they in disrepair. A mishap while attempting to upgrade them was the root cause.

The club were having maintenance done because they have aspirations of Evo-Stik League football.

The Dennyboys’ spokesman Mick Lodge said: “Because we have applied for promotion we have to have our ground graded and part of that involves a lux reading of the floodlights.

“To maximise that you need to clean the glass and reflective panels and replace any defective lamps. We get a specialist contractor in to work on them but, while they were lowering one of the pylons with the equipment they use, something went wrong.

“The game might not have beaten the weather in any case but it was a setback as the ground grading committee were due to visit on Monday so we had to contact them to reschedule.

“The first team are away tomorrow so the ground isn’t going to be used until Friday when the reserves are at home.

“At least that gave us some breathing space and meant there wasn’t any great rush to get the lights sorted, so it didn’t cause us a great deal of panic.”