Eclipse Forces AFC Turnford to Postpone Match

AFC Turnford expected to be worrying about Cuffley’s front line on Wednesday night. Instead, the non-league side found themselves beaten by the Sun and Moon.

The club, who groundshare at Wormley Rovers Football Club in Wormley, Hertfordshire, were ordered to postpone their Herts Senior County League Premier Division fixture because of the solar eclipse.

The game was due to kick off at 19:00 BST, around 40 minutes after the partial eclipse was scheduled to begin at about 18:20. With no floodlights at the ground and daylight set to dip sharply, the Herts Senior County League stepped in and told the club the match could not go ahead.

Founder-player Ronnie Bates admitted the decision caught them off guard.

“We’ve been told if you don’t have floodlights, you have to postpone your game,” he said. “I was surprised, but we are just following what has been said.”

For a club built on routine Saturday afternoons and 15:00 kick-offs, this was something entirely different.

“It’s unusual to see a game called off like that, as we’ve never had it before,” Bates added. “We are starting to lose light in the evenings, but we normally play at 15:00.”

AFC Turnford, formed six years ago by a group of friends from Haileybury Turnford School in Cheshunt, have climbed into the HSCL Premier Division and are pushing to keep moving up the pyramid. They document their progress on YouTube, showcasing the grind of non-league life and the small milestones that matter.

This week’s story, though, wrote itself.

Cuffley FC confirmed to the BBC that every club in the league had been contacted by the Herts Senior County League and Hertfordshire FA and told to move any fixtures that could not be played under floodlights on Thursday because of the eclipse.

The celestial event, during which the Sun will be almost entirely blocked by the Moon, is expected to last around one hour and 50 minutes, finishing at about 20:10, though timings vary around the globe.

For AFC Turnford, it means another rearranged date in an already busy schedule, and a reminder that at this level, even the sky can get in the way of a season’s momentum.