'Straight forward' - Referee explains decision to call off Crawley Town's play-off tie with MK Dons

The game, which was going to be broadcast live on Sky Sports, was due to kick off at 3pm but referee Ross Joyce called it off at 11.15am after an inspection.

Sky Sports showed footage of Mr Joyce kicked the ball and inspecting the goal mouth, which had huge puddles in them.

And speaking to Sky, he said: “I think the decision as you can see was pretty straight forward

“We arrived at 10.15am. The club had come in early there some concerns with the overnight rain. Unfortunately on arrival it became quite evident the game wasn't going to take place. We have done a lot of work over the last hour looking if we could delay kick-off but looking at the weather conditions it was just not possible.

Mr Joyce said the danger areas were the goalmouth and the touchline being under water was ‘not safe’. He said: “Its clearly frustrating because of the Bank Holiday weekend but I think the right decision has been made.”

The first leg will now be played tomorrow (Tuesday, May 7, 7.30pm kick off) and the second leg, due to be this Thursday, will be on Saturday, May 11 at 7.45pm.

And Mr Joyce is confident the game will be played on Tuesday night. Mr Joyce said: “Hopefully the conditions will be more favourable. The groundsman Ben [Harwood] and his team have done a lot of work this morning. He's very confident without rain it will be fine.

“We fully expect the game will be on tomorrow.”