ACCRINGTON Stanley’s Boxing Day match at home to Crewe Alexandra was postponed this afternoon because of a frozen pitch at the Crown Ground.

A local referee was called in to inspect the pitch a full 73 hours before the scheduled kick-off time of the League Two fixture, with the Football League keen to give fans’ plenty of notice of postponements if matches had little chance of going ahead.

A number of other fixtures in League Two have also been postponed.

Accrington has been hit by snow and freezing conditions in recent days and the forecast suggested there was unlikely to be a dramatic rise in temperatures.

Stanley have already lost home games against Shrewsbury and Burton to the weather in recent weeks and have now not played at the Crown Ground since November 20.

Their next match is scheduled to be Tuesday afternoon’s trip to Rotherham, although South Yorkshire has also been blighted by wintry conditions.