Gough and Robertson are exasperated by late postponement

MIKE AITKEN

BOTH Livingston and Hearts were left feeling deeply frustrated by yesterday’s late decision to postpone the SPL match at Almondvale because of a frozen pitch less than two hours before the scheduled 3pm kick-off.

On a sparklingly bright, though bitterly cold, winter morning, Kenny Clark, the match referee, left his home in Paisley at 11.30am and was forced to postpone the game at 1.15pm. He felt the goalmouth area at the end of Livingston’s ground which missed the sun was particularly frosty and could have endangered the players.

Richard Gough, the Livingston manager, was astonished the game didn’t go ahead and recalled playing on many worse surfaces during his own playing career.

"I had no idea the game was in any danger until Kenny Clark asked to see me around 1pm," reported Gough. "I was very surprised because we have undersoil heating. Maybe it was caused by a heavy overnight frost. It came as a real shock to myself and Archie Knox. The referee felt that one of the goalmouths was unplayable and that for the safety of the players the match couldn’t go ahead.

"I can remember playing on a few icy grounds in my time and in days gone by maybe it would have gone on. But you have to be fair to Kenny Clark, who is a very experienced referee. If he says it’s unplayable, then you have to accept it. The big disappointment was the decision was made so late.

"When I spoke to the referee, I said that surely he should have been here at 9am to make that decision. But he’d made the same assumption I did because of the undersoil heating. I’ve spoken to John Robertson since then and the coach bringing Hearts here from Edinburgh was turned around.

"The frustrating aspect from our point of view was that it can be an advantage to play a side which has just lost a tie in Europe. It doesn’t always work out that way, but we wanted to play the game just in case Hearts did experience a European hangover. The other aspect of my team talk was going to be that if we beat Hearts then we would come off the bottom and jump four places in the league. Win one game and move up four spots - it’s almost unheard of."

Livingston opted to play a practice match on their home turf after the game was postponed and know they are sure to be in action next week since their forthcoming fixture is on the artificial surface at Dunfermline.

Gough added that the ground’s undersoil heating had been switched on since Wednesday of last week but was unable to comment on whether or not the system was faulty. Ironically, it’s the second time this year that a match between Livingston and Hearts at Almondvale has been postponed because of a frozen pitch - last season’s SPL match on 31 January between the clubs was re-dated for the same reason.

John Robertson, the Hearts head coach, was puzzled by the late call-off and made the point that the obligation on the part of all SPL clubs to operate undersoil heating systems was supposed to prevent such late call-offs.

"It’s disappointing because we were all ready to play," said Robertson. "I thought the whole point about this SPL criterion was to have undersoil heating in order to make sure these games can go ahead. I understand there was some dubiety about the referee’s decision because the pitch might have been playable.

"We wanted to play because there was a chance for us to get back into the race for third place, but that is that."

Taken from the Scotsman