THE York Minster Engineering League are determined that none of their premier division teams will have to play more than one midweek match a week to conclude 2017/18’s stop-start season.

All of the league’s games were postponed at the weekend due to the Siberian weather conditions caused by “The Beast from the East.”

Waterlogged pitches have also proven troublesome at different stages of the campaign, while the progress of the League’s representative team to the semi-finals of the FA Inter-League competition has brought more fixture headache, with top-flight fixtures called off due to matches in the tournament being staged on a Saturday.

Old Malton St Mary’s have been worse effected, having only fulfilled 15 of their 28 league contests, leaving 13 still to fit in.

They are currently second in the table but are 20 points behind defending champions Wigginton Grasshoppers with six games in hand.

But fixture secretary Colin Atkinson is working hard to ensure that no club endures an unmanageable run-in to the end of the season, although the League Cup final is set to take place a week later than normal to ease some of the congestion.

“Most of the league is OK,” Atkinson reasoned. “The main problem – and we can’t really call it a problem – has been caused by the representative team’s progress in the national competition.

“That has had an impact on the premier division, because games have had to be postponed that involve the clubs whose players are in our squad. The successful teams have the best players and they are obviously the ones who tend to make progress in the cups as well.

“Some of the teams will be playing games well into May, therefore, as has been the case over recent seasons. The final rounds of the League Cup are scheduled for evenings in May but, whereas we normally finish in the middle of the month, I think the final will probably be played at the end of the third week.

“But all the remaining league fixtures have been scheduled and no team is down to play more than two games in a week. We’re trying to keep it that way, so sides play Saturday-Wednesday and not Saturday-Monday-Wednesday.

“Old Malton St Mary’s have the most games to play and have reached the North Riding Cup final, but that isn’t a problem, as it is played in midweek. They’re also still in the League Cup but, at the moment, they’re not down to play three games in any week.”