CRAVEN & District Football League officials are becoming resigned to the fact that the enormous back-log of postponed games that his built up in recent weeks may ultimately be unmanageable and that draconian measures may be needed to give league results some validity at the end of the season when promotion and relegation and titles are decided, (writes Tony Simpson).

Last Saturday the number of games played exceeded the number lost once again to unfit pitches and that situation prompted officials to postpone a meeting at which the back-log was to be discussed.

"We felt that with one nearly full programme behind us, it might be wiser to delay making any binding decisions for another week to see if we can get more clarity into the picture," says League Secretary, Peter Marsden: "We will now meet again on Monday week to discuss the options available to us and after that, we will hold a meeting with clubs to see what they feel about the situation.

"If the clubs have any ideas on the best way forward we will be glad to hear them. Some leagues, for example, have already decided that all games not played before January 1 will be deemed to have been drawn, but whether we go down that route remains to be seen. It is an option that can be considered, but whatever we do, there will be shortcomings and people who are unhappy."

With so many games now outstanding, even if a bout of July weather arrived this weekend and lasted for weeks, it might well be impossible to rescue the situation.

A good dry spell is definitely required for Skipton Bulldogs and Waddington, whose pitches are not likely to be fit until March at the earliest.

With further blank weekends almost inevitable if normal weather patterns are maintained, it seems that officials cannot avoid some form of drastic action, which may well involve games being written off as draws and a point awarded to each side to move some progress with the problem.

Thoughts of setting up a 'Pools Panel' of specialists to adjudicate on how the postponed games might have turned out offers one amusing possibility, but the 'drawn game' system is sure to provoke quite enough debate if it is introduced.