I was down at Anfield on Saturday, and I took the day off yesterday after I’d published my piece on Gerrard, but I am ever watchful of what is making the headlines and one of the stories which did, of course, was John McGinn expressing his anger at the Hampden pitch.
It was not in the least bit surprising to read that. But it was dispiriting.
And it is annoying to learn that after so many complaints about the League Cup Final that the turf at the national stadium is as bad as ever. The SFA are a disgrace.
All these people are, in a sense, are glorified park keepers and they can’t even do that right.
This is worrying for more than just what it says about football governance in Scotland.
It’s worrying because of what it suggests for the semi-final which is coming up.
Our game will be the third in a row over the space of a weekend, and the odds are that the pitch is going to resemble something that someone ran a plough over. That’s not right,
It’s a risk to players for a start. You would think they just didn’t care. McGinn said people were falling all over it, unable to get proper footing, unable to properly control the ball. That’s scandalous. What kind of showpiece will the game be on a pitch like that?
What kind of people are these who can’t even get this stuff right?
How long have they had to sort out that mess of a playing surface? What have they done about it? Clubs all over the world have pitches which grow under worse conditions than we have here and they are fine.
The SFA doesn’t even have the excuse that too many games are played on it … Hampden now hosts a handful of matches a year and they still can’t keep in in good nick.
That pitch should be pristine. You should be able to bowl on it. Instead we face a cup semi-final which is going to look like as if the pitch was imported from a bombed out stadium in the Ukraine.
That’s unpardonable.
If it’s as bad as McGinn suggests then heads should roll on that pitch.
But we already know there’s no accountability there, so of course that won’t happen.
Here’s a thing . On Saturday night BBC Scotland showed highlights of the Scotland v Cyprus game of which Viaplay had the live rights to . About 3 weeks ago the same BBC did not show the highlights of the Viaplay League cup final between Celtic and the Rangers. Why do they spring for one and ignore the other ?
This has been a problem for years and begs the question of the actual value of Hampden to Scottish soccer. Why not not alternate Scotland games around Celtic Rangers, Aberdeen Hearts for example and lease Murrayfield for cup finals and play semis at any of the above four grounds? It happens in other countries.
Doesn’t address the shambles that passes for governance in the SFA -board full of blazers who couldn’t spell leadership and bureaucrats whose sole role is to hang onto power. Like the dying days of eastern bloc countries before the wall came down
The SFA is a blight on Scottish football.