Gary McDaniel: Scottish Football still in ice age

User Rating: / 2
PoorBest 

More frozen pitches lead to an ice age in the Scottish game

By Gary McDaniel

Saturday's events at Mcdiarmid Park were befitting for a league which will see the champions of the SPL in 2010/11 having to go through the tense and treacherous route of qualification for the Champions League.

It wasn't the first time in SPL history that a game has been lost to a frozen pitch and neither was it the first time that a match has been postponed in such embarrassing circumstances.  On each occasion it has been the fans that have been treated with utter contempt by those that run the game.

It's Friday night and the weather forecast says temperatures in parts of Scotland are to dip to around -8 Celsius.  The first fixture on the SPL card to kick-off is the match between St Johnstone and Rangers, early on Saturday afternoon.  A 12.45pm start due to live coverage being beamed across the world via Sky Sports. A broadcaster who we practically begged to be a broadcaster of the SPL during the summer. 

Players take their first look at the surface over an hour before kick-off and are astonished to find a third of the pitch rock solid.  The referee arrives and has no other choice but to postpone the match due to the unsatisfactory conditions.  Fans from both clubs are about to converge on Mcdiarmid Park but are made aware of the match being postponed, leading to frustration and anger.  An afternoon wasted, with many out of pocket.

St Johnstone confirm that the under soil heating had been on for most of the week. Did they thoroughly check? Also with the game kicking off so early, surely those in the know at the Perth club must have been aware that the low winter sun will not thaw out part of the pitch for a 12.45pm start?

There were also problems in the lower leagues.  Most notably was the late call off of the Inverness Caley Thistle match against Queen of the South.  Some fans travelling up from Dumfries had reached Aviemore when they heard the news.  We are letting fans down, just when the game needs them.  

Looking at the call off of the match in the Highlands it gets even more disgraceful when you dig deeper.  Caley Thistle did not wish to turn on the under soil heating due to financial reasons, fair enough but with the forecast as it was would it not have been better to what was done in Dingwall and postpone on the Friday night?  It gets even worse than that when a local referee was called in to make a decision in the morning he refused to call off although the pitch was unplayable.

I follow horse racing with a passion, a sport which suffered terribly due to the very cold winter.  I remember last month when clerk of the course at Ayr, Hazel Peplinski, knew that with the cold forecast and state of the ground, the prospects for racing were very remote, so she took the correct decision and abandoned well in advance.  The same thing occurred at many tracks up and down the country.  On the rare occasion there has been a late abandonment they have quite rightly been heavily criticised.

The paying punter who gives their time and their money to go and watch and participate in a sport are its life and blood.  Scottish football is letting those people down and the more it goes on and the more we expect them to pay, at times, through the nose to view it.  We will see them walk away from it and may likely never return.

On the issue of the drop down the co efficiency ranking for the Champions League, it maybe a long time for our clubs to recover.  It means whoever features in next season's competition needs to make great strides to build up our rating in Europe's elite.  It seems unlikely. 

I think I will make this issue top for next week's column, so until then enjoy another episode of the Champions League this week, with no Scottish club's represented.