FRUSTRATED managing director Chris Pinder hit out at West Midlands League bosses after Malvern Town were ordered to replay their match at Pegasus Juniors.

Town led 5-1 with 23 minutes left at Old School Lane when the referee abandoned the match on January 9 due to a waterlogged pitch.

Pinder said league chiefs and the management at Pegasus should have agreed to do the “honourable thing” and handed Malvern the three points.

But he was stunned when the league committee decided at a meeting to play the full game again, leaving Town with a further congested fixture list.

"It is frustrating and my opinion is the sportsmanlike, gentlemanly and honourable thing to do would have been to forfeit the game and give us the three points we deserve,” he said.

“I think if you had done a ballot on whether people thought we should replay the game at 0-0 or whether we should be awarded the three points, I think most people would award us the points.

“I can’t understand how the committee have come to this decision.”

Pinder said Hereford side Pegasus have rescheduled the Premier Division match for Tuesday, March 1, so Malvern have to play 18 games between now and the end of April.

“Because of the weather, we have had many games unplayed,” he said.

“So if we had been losing a game after 66 minutes and were told we would have to replay it and fit it into an already-congested schedule, we would have forfeited the game.

“It is another case where football seems to be on a parallel universe that does not operate in the sensible world.

“It seems nonsensical with the amount of fixtures we have got to play.”

There was confusion the clash would be restarted from the 67th minute with Town holding a four-goal advantage.

But Neil Juggins, chief executive of the league, said: “The match will be replayed for the full 90 minutes at Pegasus on a date to be agreed between now and the end of the season,” he said.

“If it had been later on, we might have considered the match to be completed but, in my time as secretary, I don’t recollect us doing that in recent times.”

Malvern host Wellington Amateurs in the league today (3pm).