Bovine intervention: cows stop footie match
‘A TSUNAMI’ of cows have made local sporting history, causing the first abandonment of a league game due to bovine pitch invasion.
The Lancaster Railway League Two game between Thrive Physiotherapy and Centrals was level at 2-2 when the cows, owned by St Martin’s farmer Jeremy Le Cocq, went walkabout into pastures far removed from where they should have been.
‘It was comical,’ admitted Thrive Physiotherapy player-coach Nick Leigh-Morgan.
‘We were about three minutes into the second half when all of a sudden we heard a commotion from the top-right corner of the ground.
‘I can only describe it as a tsunami of cows,’ he said.
‘Apparently there were 180 of them and, when one decides to go, they all go.’
With the herd spread across both the Blanche Pierre Lane pitches and clearly intent on soaking up a new vista before bedtime, a decision was soon made to abandon.
‘We didn’t have a proper [qualified] referee and, as it was the last game of the season, we decided to shake hands and end the game,’ added Leigh-Morgan, who has been the prime mover in a switch to summer football, but never imagined that a negative to a season switch would be the threat of cow invasions.
‘They went all the way down as far as number two pitch and for us it became a little like that One Man and His Dog programme as we used corner flags to try and herd them up. Me and 15 other players and the three farmers all had a go,’ he added.
‘Everybody was laughing their head off.
‘Some of them also did, shall we say, their business, on the main pitch.’
Henry Davey, the former St Martin’s club president, said he had never seen such a thing in virtually an entire lifetime spent at Blanche Pierre Lane.
‘Thick fog, yes, but never a herd of cattle.’
The game will not be replayed.
