You've dragged our whole game through the mud

Dundee should be hammered for utter cow field of a pitch

- KEITH JACKSON

THEY can say it's been a long hard Scottish winter. They can play the victim card to freakish bad luck. They can blame it all on global warming, if they so wish.

But the truth of the matter is Dundee's pitch is a complete and utter cow field and yesterday's farcical postponement of a match of enormous significance has heaped another pile of steaming dung on the reputation of Scottish football's top flight.

Let's start at the beginning. If a football club serves any kind of purpose, first and foremost it's surely to facilitate the playing of actual football matches.

That Dundee can't seem to be trusted to live up to that simple, fundamental part of the bargain ought to see them hammered by the authorities, who must have been struggling to contain their own apoplexy at around 4pm yesterday when the inevitable happened. Again.

And this time live on rolling news on Sky, just to ensure an extra dollop of excruciating embarrassment.

The broadcasters and their cameras were in town for the visit of Rangers, which would have gone ahead last month as originally scheduled if only the playing surface of the Scot Foam Stadium wasn't more like some kind of filthy, sand-filled soft play area from the third world.

The plug had to be pulled on that one, too, but not before Philippe Clement and his players had already turned up at Dens Park ready for action.

In total, then, on five separate occasions this season, Dundee's pitch has been deemed to be unfit for purpose twice for games against Rangers plus matches versus Ross County, Aberdeen and St Johnstone.

To be forced into one call-off might have been described as unfortunate. To have to do it five times smacks of complete and utter incompetence.

It also betrays a complete disregard for the rest of the teams in the competition as well as the image of the game in this country in general.