THE Shakers have moved quickly to avert another postponement at the weekend by purchasing new frost covers for the Gigg Lane pitch.

Director Iain Mills drove down to Bristol first thing on Monday morning and purchased the massive sheets from specialist manufacturers Tildenet.

Although the sheets only cover half of the pitch they still cost the club more than £13,000, but in the wake of last Saturday's freeze-up it was decided that would be money well spent.

They will give added protection to the section of the field that lies in the shadow of the South Stand and has become an annual problem.

Club groundsman Mike Curtis was far from happy at the decision to call off Saturday's home game with Rushden & Diamonds.

Nottingham referee Russell Booth postponed the match after two inspections of the playing area, the final one at 1pm, when the Northamptonshire side were almost at the ground and scores of their supporters had aready arrived in town.

Curtis and his staff had laid protective covers over the pitch in anticipation of the predicted overnight frosts but, once again, the south side of the playing area, in the stand's shadow was slow to thaw.

But the groundsman reckoned that come the 3pm kick-off time the surface would have been perfectly playable.

"We've played games on worse than that, I was gutted," he explained.

"Covers were put over the pitch but the frost got underneath them, there wasn't much more we could do.

"It would definitely have been okay at 3pm but referees are culpable and are increasingly cautious."

Mr Booth rang the club on Saturday morning and spoke to commercial boss Peter Young who informed him that the pitch was frozen.

The official then said he would arrive earlier at the ground to have a look.

He wasn't happy with the surface at 10.30am when the covers came off but said he would give it till 1pm to see if there was an improvement.

On his second inspection he put on his boots and ran around but was concerned that with certain sections of the pitch soft and others hard it would have been a danger to the players.

Curtis immediately approached the board of directors with a view to getting some extra covers for the ground and they readily agreed to invest in new ones.

"The ones we've been using are 15 years old and have lost their effectiveness to a certain extent," he added.

"Even they weren't new when we received them as they'd been used on Oldham RLFC's Watersheddings ground prior to its demolition..

"The big problem is obviously the south side of the pitch. It won't get any direct sunlight until April next year now.

"People don't realise what a big shadow the South Stand casts, it's massive and covers about 26 yards of the pitch.

"The old stand only cast one of about a yard onto the playing area so that wasn't a problem."

One idea was to put a transparent roof on the stand allowing the sun to get through to the troublesome area.

However, health and safety objections have scuppered that idea with the local authority concerned about the possibility of someone falling through if maintenance work was to be done.

With a home match against Cheltenham planned for this Saturday it is to be hoped the weather is kinder than of late although.