Hull’s game with Birmingham City was delayed by around 20 minutes with goalposts at the South Stand end found to be two inches too high.
Checks were taken place across the weekend by the EFL following an incident earlier this month at Wigan Athletic, and when the match officials conducted their pre-match checks, the goalposts were discovered to be too high.
Ground staff took the goalposts down and even trimmed them to ensure they were the correct size before being fully re-installed at 2:30pm, half-an-hour before the scheduled kick-off time with the players yet to make their way out to warm-up.
Hull City vs Birmingham City has been delayed because the goals are too big 🥅
They are currently being sawed 2 inches smaller 🤣 pic.twitter.com/fMMoQOdoyE
— Football Daily (@footballdaily) October 16, 2022
The Tigers went into this hoping for second successive home win after beating the Latics last time out and made four changes to the side beaten at Huddersfield a week ago.
“Kick-off this afternoon has been delayed to 3:20pm. The match officials have informed the club that the goal posts need to be readjusted and HawkEye recalibrated before the match can start,” the club said in a statement.
It is the second time a week that a Championship match has had issues with the grame-frames, after Wigan and Cardiff City went ahead despite the fact it was established before kick-off that one goal frame was approximately two inches taller than the other.
The clubs and match officials agreed the game should go ahead as neither team would gain an advantage. “I did ask if we could attack that end in both halves but they weren’t having that!” Cardiff boss Mark Hudson said after his team won 3-1 – and scored a goal off the underside of Wigan’s crossbar.
Wigan Athletic had last laugh after Blackburn’s cheeky dig at them in a pre-match tweet referencing the goal size.
The Latics claimed a first home win of the Championship season with a 62nd minute goal in what was a rather uninspiring north west derby against a blunt Rovers side.
On-loan Everton forward Nathan Broadhead got the only goal of the game on the rebound after Blackburn keeper Thomas Kaminski parried from Will Keane.
Before the game however, Blackburn took a swipe if you like at Wigan making sure the size of both goals are the same.
“Did you bring that tape measure?”#WIGvROV | #Rovers 🔵⚪️ pic.twitter.com/cjwt0m0hFc
— Blackburn Rovers (@Rovers) October 11, 2022
According to FA rules, crossbars must be no higher than eight feet tall — yet one of the goals at the DW Stadium exceeded that limit and now Wigan Athletic face an FA probe.
Rugby league outfit Wigan Warriors also play at the venue with goalposts dismantled by groundstaff at the end of every game and then put up prior to the next match.
The crossbar incident delayed the game for seven minutes. It didn’t help the Latics though, who were beaten 3-1 by the Bluebirds.
It was made aware before kick-off that one goal frame was approximately two inches taller than the other.
The clubs and match officials agreed the game should go ahead as neither team would gain an advantage.
“I did ask if we could attack that end in both halves but they weren’t having that!” said Cardiff boss Mark Hudson.
This is what fans said as Hull’s game with Birmingham had to be delayed by around 20 minutes in bizarre circumstances…
@DanWAFC03: @PKendrickWIG Latics not the only ones…
@HoppersGuide: First we had the comms cutting out at Leeds v Arsenal and now this at Hull City. Technology eh?
@DawsonsLeftPeg: Which idiot at the SMC in charge of putting them back up after the egg chasing doesn’t know the regs? #hcafc
@joel_robin5on: What a joke 😂
@mackenzieM00re1: what is going on today 🤣
@Pandamonium1881: Imagine if they cut off too much 🙈😂😂
@jpjacko: The only this that is shocking about this is it wasn’t at St Andrews
@KELSEARAVENHILL: Couldn’t write it 😂😂
@1884DJT: There’s definitely some betting scam involved somewhere today
@SneakyFulhamFan: I dunno if I’m more shocked that the goals were the wrong size to begin with, they actually check the size instead of just paying it lip service or the solution is to fucking saw them into the right shape 😭
@almajir: I have so many questions as to how this was noticed today and not before.
@Gazz_TheRover: #drfc should do this. Gives us a better chance to score our one shot per game.
@LukeyWilko: No wonder we concede so much, goals were too big 🤣 #hcafc
@imoprescott: Can’t decide between being embarrassed, concerned or amused #hcafc
@AntNorthgraves: That’s why we’re conceding so many! Restart the Season #hcafc
@RichWXM: 2nd Championship club this has happened at in the last few weeks. What’s going on?
@matt_the_jack: This makes me wonder how many goals up and down the country have been wrong in the history of football
@scottfarrow88: 😂 make their goal what size you want, it won’t make a difference! But, watch us hit the bar 3 times in the first half now #hcafc
@jamiehunter72: I thought we were the ones that were meant to be in the Farmers League? 😂
@TheFootballPink: I’d love to know how long they’ve been too big. Do they measure the goals every game? What happened to the posts from the last game? I have so many questions
@bakes1970: Somebody check the goals at Molineux, maybe they’ve been too small for the last three years! Seriously though, why is this happening so often at the moment!
@RyanCCFC20: What’s going on with the football today fucking hell 😂😂
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