A late kick-off for a Championship clash is posing a “headache” for football fans relying on public transport, a supporters’ club has said.
Public transportation, according to a fans’ group.
Norwich City will play Leicester City at Carrow Road later, but the game will now begin at 20:00 BST rather than 19:45 so that Sky TV can broadcast it.
As a result, supporters may miss the last train to London at 22:00.
“It’s a very minor change for Sky Sports, but it has a significant impact,” said Ffion Thomas of Capital Canaries.
The chairperson of the London-based supporters’ group, speaking on BBC Radio Norfolk, said: “It’s not just everyone going to London, but all the stations in between – Diss, Stowmarket, Ipswich, Chelmsford.”
“There will be a lot of people who will have a headache.”
“It’s frustrating because the [time] shift… is simply because it’s on TV.”
Norwich City will host Leicester at Carrow Road, however due to the TV schedule, the game will begin later.
Greater Anglia, which operates the service from a station near Carrow Road, said it was difficult to change services quickly due to the knock-on consequences.
“These games get rescheduled quite late, and rail service planning is normally done 12 weeks in advance,” said Jonathan Denby of the firm.
“The issue is that there are a lot of people traveling on that train route to other regions, and they, unfortunately, have connections all the way down the route.”
“Those are the last trains in the evening, and if the train is delayed, they may become stranded.”
While it was occasionally possible to hold services to local towns and villages for a few minutes, Mr Denby warned that delaying the train to London may result in technical work as well as missed connections.
He also mentioned that there was a last train at 23:05 for fans returning to stations between Norwich and Ipswich.
