However, prior to the postponement City booked a training camp in Dubai, expecting to be without a game until the 29th after going out of the cup. The Football League said they "do not feel it would be reasonable" for City to return from Dubai on Thursday and play a hastily arranged league game two days later.
A more suitable date will be decided upon once Phil Brown and his team are back in Hull, fresh from the trip where they will play a behind-closed-doors game against CSKA Moscow.
Both clubs claim to have been disappointed that the game couldn't go ahead as planned last Saturday, yet they are feuding once more, just as they did when Phil Parkinson left Layer Road to become City's manager 18 months ago. Colchester say City wanted referee Pat Miller to call the game off so they could get away to their training camp.
But City's chairman Paul Duffen called Colchester "incompetent" for not alerting the referee of the pitch's condition prior to his arrival at midday. He declared the match off 50 minutes later, little over two hours before kick-off with almost a thousand City fans already on their way to the ground. Duffen said Colchester's claims that City wanted the game off are "ridiculous", and that had the game gone ahead it would have been "a banker three points" for the Tigers.
When the match gets re-arranged, City will be offering free travel on its Tiger Travel coach service to all of the club's fans. Tickets with the 19th January date on them will still be valid.