CANVEY Island manager Danny Heale couldn’t hide his frustration after his side’s match at Needham Market was abandoned after 45 minutes because of a floodlight failure.

The Gulls were 2-1 up at the break on Tuesday, having conceded a stoppage time goal after a George Sykes double.

But an official came into the Canvey dressing room during half-time to tell the team that the floodlights on one side of the pitch had failed.

Despite efforts to restore the fault, the game was called off at 9:25pm.

And Heale said it was an incredibly frustrating night for everyone who made the trip to Suffolk.

“While I was giving the the team talk someone came in and said one side of the ground’s floodlights had gone out,” said Heale.

“We are just heading out to start the second-half and both managers said they wanted to play but the referee said it was out of his control.

“So we hung around and, eventually, at 9:25pm he called it off.

“We don’t know when the match will take place yet but it could be in the week after the FA Cup match against Dunstable next weekend, proving Needham and I don’t have replays.”

It is not the first time Needham have had trouble with their floodlights, with a match against East Thurrock United last season thrown into doubt after the lights went out during the warm-up.

Heale said he wasn’t angry with Needham, but said there were many things about the night that irked him.

“It’s not their fault of course but it’s frustrating as we all went down there and it was for nothing,” he said.

“(Assistant manager) Joe Keith is with us now and was with East Thurrock last year and he said the lights tripped out in the warm up then too.

“There are other things too. George Sykes scored two great goals and now they are telling me the result won’t stand, which I expected, but the yellow cards do. We had two yellow cards but how can that work? I think they are having a meeting today to talk about that.

“There were other things. We were 2-0 up and coasting and the referee comes over and says there was one minute added on.

“I sync my watch with the referee at the start of the match to keep times for substitutions and even though there was just one minute added on, Needham scored their goal almost three minutes after that.

“We are doing really well at the moment and we should have 12 points and we only have four and are a game behind now.

“It’s frustrating but we have to make sure it doesn’t affect us ahead of the weekend.”