Dundee have slammed the decision to call off their Premiership clash with Aberdeen less than an hour before kick-off.
Manager Tony Docherty was “stunned” after his pre-match team meeting was interrupted to give the news there would be no game.
News then emerged from Dens Park that a pitch inspection by official David Munro had resulted in the game being postponed with home and away fans streaming away from the ground.
That came shortly after two o’clock with “water in the goalmouth” given as the reason for the match being called off.
Dundee, however, plan to take their frustrations to the powers that be.
Indeed the Dark Blues held a training session on the pitch to demonstrate it was playable.
‘Taking it up with the league’
General manager Greg Fenton said: “We arrived this morning as normal for the game and there was light rain, but no issues with the pitch at that time.
“There were no concerns.
“The referee arrived at 1.40 for the game, he did his pitch inspection and had concerns with the away end goalmouth.
“At that point, with no consultation with the managers or the police, he made his decision to call it off.
“He made his decision then told the managers and police.
“Would I have expected him to speak to the managers first? All of us, the managers, police, safety team and all together make a decision.
“He said he had concerns with the water in the goalmouth and player safety.
“Obviously we’re not happy with that and we’ll be taking it up with the league and the SFA.
“We will deal with it internally but we will be taking it up with them.”
He added: “Do we believe the pitch is playable? Absolutely.
“We have had it a lot worse here, against Motherwell at the start of the season, the Rangers game on the first of November.
“Those were a lot worse than what this is, in my opinion.
“You can see from the players training on it.
“Any event that gets cancelled there’s obviously a cost to that and it will be six figures.”
Tony Docherty
Meanwhile, Dundee boss Tony Docherty says the fact his side trained on the park showed the surface was playable.
He said: “The thing that is surreal at the moment is that it is three minutes past three, three minutes after kick off would be, and my team has already done a 15 minute session.
“And we will be doing a 90 minute session on the pitch which tells you everything.
“I think the game should have gone ahead.
“I was in the middle of my team meeting about five to two and I got a chap at the door. That must have been five to two to tell me the game is off.
“I don’t know what the protocol is, but I would expect that to be the case, that the referee would speak to myself and the opposition manager but that never happened.
“I am stunned, shocked and really disappointed. It is a busy schedule, you organise family life around games of football and now you need to change all that.”
Docherty also had sympathy for the travelling supporters with a big crowd expected at Dens Park.
“You have 3,000 Aberdeen fans here and I know how passionate they are but more importantly I have all my home fans coming here on the back of good performances,” he added.
“The two good teams were going to go hard at it.”
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