Juniors: Bad weather is the only winner

Dec 2 2008 by Our Correspondent, Perthshire Advertiser Tuesday

SATURDAY’S fixtures were completely decimated as pitches were ruled unplayable by referee inspections.

It would be fair to say that this wasn’t unexpected as the temperature had plummeted for much of the week.

However it was still a disappointing scenario when it became a reality.

This was probably felt most by severely Jeanfield Swifts and Coupar Angus who were due to play in Scottish Cup third round ties.

The Scottish Junior Cup creates a special atmosphere and a sense of expectation at clubs and to have games called off causes a real feeling of anticlimax – even although the games still have to be played.

Swifts’ secretary, Eric Allen said of the early inspection at the Riverside: “Our opponents were scheduled to leave at 9am so an early inspection was imperative if they were to be stopped from travelling should the pitch be declared unplayable, which of course it was.”

It was a similar situation with the Coupar Angus tie as they were due to play Glasgow club St Anthony’s and they too were stopped from making an unnecessary and expensive journey by an early pitch inspection.

Referee Jeff Banks was a busy man on Saturday as not only was he involved in the ground inspections for Jeanfield Swifts and Scone Thistle, in the afternoon he officiated at the Kirrie Thistle v Glenrothes Scottish Cup tie which was played at West View Park, Kirriemuir.

This was the only game played in the Tayside region.

The result was Kirrie Thistle 0, Glenrothes 4. All the goals were scored in the second half of the game.

The fixtures that were due to be played in Fife suffered the same fate as their Tayside counterparts with no games played. There were a few games played in the Lothian’s.

Overall however it was tremendously disappointing day in the east region with something like 23 games in total being cancelled.