WHAT an absolute farce in Warsaw.

You have to wonder whether there is an underlying story for England’s game not going ahead as scheduled.

The pitch in Poland is not supposed to be great anyway and was newly relaid.

Maybe the Polish manager thought that an extra bit of rain on the turf would have meant England having to take an extra touch.

If so, talk about a misjudgement! They’ll just have to deal with it.

I can’t remember being made to play the next day after a postponement during my own playing career.

But in those days, games were called off all the time, particularly in the domestic league.

There will probably be a reason the roof wasn’t closed that won’t come out for a long time.

And conspiracy theories will at least make it interesting.

It was too dangerous to close the roof? That’s absolute rubbish. Why would they build a roof it could be too dangerous to close it?

As per normal, the punters are the last anyone thinks about. I hope the authorities do something to help both sets of fans, even if it is only to reimburse them.

Watching ITV desperately try to fill while the decision was being considered over whether or not to play the game was extremely amusing.

It was a good test for my former colleague Adrian Chiles. I was going to text him but I knew that probably would have sent him into orbit!

The bottom line is the referee should have called the game off straight away.

There were far more unsavoury scenes in Serbia, where England’s under-21 side were the victim of some disgraceful behaviour.

The punishment has to fit the crime. I was in Madrid for England’s game in 2009 when monkey chants were directed at Shaun Wright-Phillips and Ashley Cole, and the authorities did hardly anything.

A fine? Is that it? It just means nothing. It’s not even a slap on the wrists.

Serbia should either be chucked out or told to play home games behind closed doors.

The problem as much as anything is a lack of education; those Serbian fans and players probably think that’s what life is like as such racism is a constant thing over there.

UEFA and FIFA are so bad at doing other things, but this is quite clearly the worst thing.

Some people have since brought up the John Terry situation as evidence England is also racist, but the point is the English FA is trying to deal with it. Many other countries are not.

In Serbia it might not be another generation before change can seriously affect people’s thinking. Until then, unless you hit them hard, it will still go on.