THE WAIT GOES ON

The postponement of the match against Queen's Park takes Shire's weather-enforced wait for a game into almost record-breaking territory.

The latest call-off means even if next Saturday's match at Forfar Athletic does take place, the team will not have played a match between 12th December and 16th January - a run of five weeks or thirty five days.

That eclipses the most recent winter delays in 1984/85 and even the great cold snap of 1978/79, when the team went 28 days without playing a match. It even surpasses the 30 days when all Shire matches were snowed or frozen off in 1976/77 season when there was no action for players or fans between 27th November and 27th December.

The current run equals the 35 days without a game in the winter of 1907/08, and even the all-time record is now just one more postponement away.

That was in the famous winter of 1963 which was the worst on record for everyone, not just football teams.

Shire were battered not once, but twice, by the chill and, amazingly, played just one match between 15th December 1962 and 6th March 1963.

First, they went 30 days without a game. After beating Stranraer 6-0 at home on 15th December they had to wait until 26th January,and a 2-0 victory over Stirling Albion at Firs Park, to get back into action.

But that turned out to be a brief respite. Because it was a further five-and-a-half weeks, 39 days, before they could play again. It was worth waiting for mind, a 1-0 Scottish Cup victory over First Division Motherwell on Wednesday 6th March. And that's the longest ever Shire have been forced to wait by the weather for a game.

Needless to say, there was some catching up to do. Shire were left with nine individual postponed matches to play to complete the season. It meant two games a week for the players for nine of the next ten weeks, into the middle of May. And they still won promotion.