Between light poles, lightening and playing home games at three different schools and playing games on Thursdays, Fridays and Mondays, it’s been an erratic football schedule for King’s Fork this fall. As of Wednesday afternoon, it looks as though the last two home games for the Bulldogs will go on as high school football is meant to be played.

Starting this Friday with King’s Fork’s homecoming date with Deep Creek, the Bulldogs will be playing under the lights as new light poles are scheduled to be installed and working by Thursday evening.

After a light pole at Norview’s football stadium in Norfolk fell on empty bleachers in early September, inspections took place at King’s Fork’s stadium. The light poles in both stadiums were built by the same company, Whitco, in the same year, 2004.

The inspections at King’s Fork saw no serious problems in the light poles, but couldn’t completely verify their safety either. The light poles were taken down on Sept. 23.

The Bulldogs played a scheduled home game versus Hickory at Hickory, then played one “home” game each at Nansemond River and Lakeland.

The Deep Creek game and KF’s last game of the season versus city rival Nansemond River were rescheduled for Saturday afternoons at King’s Fork. Now, both are back on the schedule for Friday nights as normal.

“The school board tried to make it possible for us to have Friday night games for our last two games as best they could,” said King’s Fork activities director Randy Jessee.

Head coach Joe Jones knew of the possibility of moving this week’s game back to Friday night last week, but he didn’t want to put the word out too soon.

“Actually, it was last week during practice, and we saw the guys out working, guys from the electric company, and they told me the timetable,” said Jones.

The poles were going up during the day Wednesday and the plan was to have the lights up and running by Thursday night said Jones.

“We’re pretty optimistic about it. Nobody wanted to guarantee anything until it looked good, but now we feel pretty good about it,” said Jones.

The new lights cost $230,000. The money came from the facilities portion of the current budget said Suffolk Public Schools spokesperson Bethanne Bradshaw in a report on wvec.com.

“The guys seem pretty excited to finally play here and play under the lights,” said Jones.

“The crowds are better on Friday nights. There are just a lot of other things going on on Saturdays. There’s a good buzz around school this week. It’s spirit week, with it being Homecoming, and everyone’s into it and seems excited about the game,” said Jones.