COLCHESTER United chairman Robbie Cowling says this weekend's friendly against Peterborough United has been moved to benefit the club 'for the season ahead'.

The U's pre-season game against Posh this Saturday has been moved to Peterborough to protect the JobServe Community Stadium pitch, which has undergone extensive work over the summer.

Colchester will now take on their League One opponents behind closed doors at Posh's training ground, kick-off 12.30pm.

 

Mr Cowling told CU-FC.COM: "Moving the game away from the stadium isn't something we wanted to do.

"But after the extensive work that has been done over the summer, both under the surface with the drainage and on the surface itself, a decision had to be made to benefit us for the season ahead and to not have a repeat of last season's postponements."

Colchester have carried out comprehensive work on their pitch this summer, following a spate of postponements in the final weeks of last season.

(Image: STEVE BRADING)

The U's have installed new drainage in a bid to avoid to kind of problems they suffered at the stadium last season, which led to Danny Cowley's side having to play ten games in the final 30 days of the campaign.

Speaking at last weekend's Open Day, Mr Cowling said: “The pitch is a little bit behind where we want it to be.

“The amount of work that’s had to go on on the pitch has been enormous.

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“It’s come at a time when one of our main greenkeepers had to go and have an operation and we had somebody else leave but the effort from everyone involved has been tremendous.

“They’ve worked really hard and they’re still working hard.

“We’re very confident that the work we’re doing now will over the season be extremely worthwhile and will give us a really good pitch for maybe a few seasons to come, as well.

“There has been a tremendous amount of investment in the pitch."

Supporters who had purchased match or parking tickets for this weekend's game at the JobServe Community Stadium will have these refunded to the account they paid with.