Hearts have pointed the finger of blame at Iain Brines for the late postponement of their match at Ross County.
Despite the generous expenses paid by the SFA and SPL Brines arrived at Dingwall between 1pm and 1.30pm and quickly called the game off due to water-logging.
The circumstances are very similar to those suffered by Celtic in April 2010 when Craig Thomson called off a match at Inverness Caley Thistle with water-logging again the problem.
Hearts managing director David Southern said: “My understanding is the referee arrived at the ground between one o’clock and half past one.
“Given the rain that has fallen across the country, would it not have been more prudent for the referee to have been here mid-morning or early morning?
“A number of fans, not just Hearts fans but Ross County fans, have travelled from far and wide.
“We have supporters clubs in Manchester, Leeds, York and London that travel for this game and it does defy belief in some ways that we can actually have a game in the most northerly point of professional league football called off just one hour before kick-off.”
Ross County have offered to pay for the travel of Hearts fans going to the rescheduled match but that hardly addresses the problem.
With the highlands just a three hour drive from the central belt it shouldn’t be beyond the authorities to ensure that match officials are available at any time on match days to carry out a pitch inspection.
Making a decision on the condition of the pitch at 10am would have saved a number of Hearts fans from a wasted journey and given the impression that Scottish football is a professional thinking business.
CLICK HERE who is Rami Gershon?
Follow Video Celts on Twitter and Facebook
Being pedantic here, but Dingwall is NOT the most northerly place for a senior Scottish fitba club. It is in fact Elgin.
Hail! Hail!
Ulryc
Naw dingwall is further north than Elgin – Elgins on the Moray Firth level with Inverness but you go past Inverness to the Black Isle to get to Dingwall
To be fair to the referee, I am sure he would have arranged for a local referee to check the park early morning. However with constant rain it can quickly become unplayable. Referee is a no win situation, cancel too early and clubs complain park is playable, let it go and see game reduced to a farce or worse abandoned.
Anyone travelling any distance to a game at this time of year, with very wet conditions over the entire country would need to ensure they keep a close check on reports.
Game could have been off in most parts of the UK not just Northern Scotland or thanks to Brines.
You wouldnt be a ref in some capacity would you? 🙂
to be fair to the guy above (and Brines) it is the responsibility of the home club to arrange an early pitch inspection if they think there is a danger the game will be off. SPL refs are required to be at a game 2 hours before kick off so he should have been there at 1pm. I believe the issue was that there was a horrendous downpour from 11am onwards which coupled with heavy rain throughout the week before made things much worse than they were. The local refs association would have provided a ref to carry out a pitch Inspection if need be it didn’t need to be brines who did it. The downpour was pretty much local to Dingwall as Highland League matches at Nairn & Grantown all went ahead.
ihope that any recompense will go to the fans who after all did put there hands in there pockets to stop hearts from going out of business