DUFC game off: CONFIRMED

[tm4tj]

On the basis that the emergency services were employed elsewhere and anyone travelling to and from games were at risk. Don't be confused by the fact that bus routes may have been ok, because there are still areas where the snow and ice are causing issues. Why risk adding to the confusion because we want to see a game of footie. Don't forget that we live in the relative safety of Inverness, where it is renowned for it's less severe weather at this time of year. I take it your tv is broken and you have not seen footage of the conditions further South than here.

If you think that football is more important than the safety of thousand of civilians then so be it.

Don't quote me about folk going to Tesco's etc as they will try to get there anyway.

[CaleyD]

Travel conditions were no worse yesterday than they were last Saturday.

I'm not trying to make light of the conditions, but I do think there's a lot of misinformation and scaremongering going on. Winters are nothing now compared to what they used to be, vehicles have improved, roads have improved...yet somehow it's more dangerous than ever to venture beyond your front door.

Also, when did it the SPL become the weather/travel experts, and when did we start looking to them for travel advice? Blair already admitted that he made the decision himself earlier in the week and it was not on the advice of the police.

As I can be called on to drive anywhere at short notice I tend to keep an eye on what's going on with road conditions at this time of year and we had nothing more than the usual "if you must travel, do so with care" messages until late last night...and even then it was warnings for untreated roads/routes. There was nothing to have prevented Dundee Utd and fans from that part of the world travelling up and back safely yesterday.

As for the whole Tesco/Eastgate argument...of course people will travel there anyway, it's been safe enough for them to do so. What's more, unlike the SPL they don't presume to know better and give people travel advice, they open their doors and leave it up to individuals to decide on whether or not it is safe for them travel.

[old caley girl]

May have been the right decision but taken too early imo. Also have to agree with Caley D that no one seemed particularly concerned about the safety of our fans and team last week. It may be that the police dont want fans travelling but plenty of folk seen quite happy to travel despite conditions for other reasons.Why does football have to be different?

[MissICT]

So people are saying now it was the right decision! why was I getting slagged off for saying it?

[tm4tj]

Surprised at your stance CaleyD.

In midweek when the games were called off, in my opinion it was the correct decision at that time. The travel conditions on air/rail/road were all up in the lap of the gods. The SPL have no more of a crystal ball than me or you, but only a blind man would agree that everything was sweet. I see you are going to be no more convinced than I am of the opposing beliefs. How would the emergency services have coped if they were still on 24 hour call for another three or four days? WTD dictates that you have rest periods.

We up here in cosy land have not a clue what it was like further South. If you saw the pictures of Aucterarder about wed/thurs then you would have seen folk digging cars out of 3ft snow banks in the High Street. That itself tells me that all is not well.

The SPL are not travel experts. Correct me if I am wrong, but I doubt it was them that shut roads/airports and rail lines because of the weather.

A decision has to be made at some stage, would you rather the scenario of a game called off half an hour before kick off? The SPL were pro-active and saved everyone a lot of hassle.

If you believe they were wrong then write to them and complain.

I also thought that Butcher criticising the decision was out of order as well, a rather selfish outburst from a man who has built a reputation from using logic and rationale, with little thought for the general public.

[Alex MacLeod]

Living right in the middle of the worst of the snow I believe the call offs to have been the correct decision. There were no trains yesterday on many of the lines down here and its the same today. Many roads have still to be cleared. Many more have been cleared but not salted. Salt is being preserved for arterial routes only. Supermarkets have empty shelves. Fuel stations cant get deliveries. My neighbour is a trucker. He left here a week last friday to go to Newcastle and Norwich. Got back yesterday. Thats the reality of central Scotland and east of England.

Edited December 5, 2010 by Alex MacLeod

[TopSix]

I was grateful they made the decision early in the week. I find coming up to Inverness and then finding out on the Saturday morning a right pain. Fair play to the SPL in making the call early. They made it clear the decision was taken to take in to account the safety of fans travelling. Quite surprised at TBs comments too. I can see where he's coming from though in a footballing sense after the performance against celtic.

[Johnboy]

Travel conditions were no worse yesterday than they were last Saturday.

I'm not trying to make light of the conditions, but I do think there's a lot of misinformation and scaremongering going on. Winters are nothing now compared to what they used to be, vehicles have improved, roads have improved...yet somehow it's more dangerous than ever to venture beyond your front door.

Also, when did it the SPL become the weather/travel experts, and when did we start looking to them for travel advice? Blair already admitted that he made the decision himself earlier in the week and it was not on the advice of the police.

As I can be called on to drive anywhere at short notice I tend to keep an eye on what's going on with road conditions at this time of year and we had nothing more than the usual "if you must travel, do so with care" messages until late last night...and even then it was warnings for untreated roads/routes. There was nothing to have prevented Dundee Utd and fans from that part of the world travelling up and back safely yesterday.

As for the whole Tesco/Eastgate argument...of course people will travel there anyway, it's been safe enough for them to do so. What's more, unlike the SPL they don't presume to know better and give people travel advice, they open their doors and leave it up to individuals to decide on whether or not it is safe for them travel.

Totally agree with all of that.... If people want to travel anywhere they, and they alone, should have the right to make that choice.

If I slipped and on an icy footpath on my way to a match and landed on my backside I certainly wouldn't blame the police, the SFA, or anyone else for not having barred me from travelling.

My only concern with all this is that CaleyD and I have now agreed about something two days on the trot. That just has to be some kind of a record.

[CaleyD]

Why so surprised at my stance?

Two things are annoying me in all of this....the early decision and the fact that decisions are being made on the grounds that people don't have the wherewithal to think for themselves.

The SPL thought they knew better than everyone else when they called the game off so early. No severe weather warnings had been issued for the weekend at time, the police had not advised them to postpone games on the grounds of safety or lack of resources...nothing. Clubs had not even been consulted, nor had any rasied any issue with getting pitches playable. This is not conjecture on my part, Blair confirmed it all in his interview with the press on Wednesday or Thursday. It was his decision, "his decision alone and it was the final one". There was absolutely no basis for his decision other than what he believed...as I said, when did the SPL become experts on such matters?

The decision did not have to be made then and nobody was pressurising them to make a decision. They could/should have issued a statement saying that if weather persisted then games could be under threat. That way people can decide for themselves whether or not they wanted to risk buying train tickets etc...although as I said before, most people will have already purchased tickets to get the cheaper deals, so the timing of the call off will not have helped them anyway. This would then have allowed them to make a more informed decision on the Friday with a more accurate picture of the forecast and having consulted with the police and other services as necessary. The whole "not enough resources to cope" is nothing but pure conjecture and there's absolutely no proof or precedence to show that going ahead with football matches during periods of bad weather results in additional emergencies. It's naive to think that those who might have travelled to the football will have spent the day sitting with their feet up and not gone out over the front door instead.

Had the SPL given the "early warning" statement instead of the blanket call off, then there's every chance that our game could have gone ahead. As I said, I have been keeping an eye on things, and it would have been perfectly feasible to get from Dundee to Inverness and back safely, and nothing in any of the "expert" reports were indicating that would have been any different. Routes were open, roads were clear and being treated etc.

Of course, not all Dundee United fans would have been travelling from Dundee, just the same as not all ICT fans live locally....but where do you draw the line? I don't want to turn this into a campaign for a winter shut down, but if the SPL are going to be taking such widespread, soft decisions on when a match should and should not be able to go ahead then we'd be as well shutting things down now and not even considering any more matches for the next 3 months.

[Alex MacLeod]

Don, if you were keeping such a good eye on things then how come you didn't notice that, on friday, the A92 between Perth and Dundee was closed for a period. The A9 was closed for a period at Auchterarder and at Dunkeld. Even the Forth road bridge was closed as was the Tay bridge in one direction.

Nine days after the first snows and there's still 18 inches of the stuff in my garden. Only now its frozen snow because temperatures haven't gotten above -3 in the last few days. Today is actually the first full day without a fall of snow. Most of the streets in both Perth and Dundee have not been cleared and contrary to what you suggested in an earlier post, the modern car is worse than its older counterparts when it comes to grip on ice.

[tm4tj]

Sorry

I can't make it any clearer than I already have. Lives were at risk for the sake of a few football games. The SPL have taken a decision to aleviate the burden and removed the onus from them. Surely better to err on the side of caution.

I saw plenty of weather forecasts advising that travel was ill advised, where have you been hiding?

Prove to me that by holding these games in crap conditions that nobody would have been inconvenienced. Your argument is flawed and ill advised I'm afraid.

I'm sure I could have travelled from Inverness to Dundee and back again if I put my mind to it. It's a whole different ball game expecting 5000 to do it without incident in the prevaling climate.

[+DoofersDad]

I'll add my agreement to Caley D and Johnboy. If the home club says they can host the game, the away team say they can get there and an appropriate referee can confirn the pitch is playable, then that should be that - game on. Of course, those involved need to make decisions early to prevent fans travelling when games are called off but it should be for the the clubs and the referee to decide and not the SPL or the police.

I understand the difficulty some supporters will have in getting to the game but this is just a matter of degree as there are always risks in going to a match - people trip on pavements and people are involved in RTAs in the best of weather. So unless you stick to a basic principle, where do you draw the line? Should the EPL postpone the Liverpoool Villa match tomorrow because some folk in the East of the country can't get to the pub to watch the match on big screen TV because of the weather? No. Of course not! Making arbitrary boundaries just does not work.

On this occasion it was nothing to do with the police but it has been in the past. Again, it's not their call. They don't tell the pubs and the cinemas etc to close during bad weather so why should football fans be singled out as not being capable of making decisions for themselves? Don't get me wrong, I have huge sympathy for the police in dealing with the consequences of people who make poor judgements or who are just plain stupid (none more so that the idiot in this story http://www.bbc.co.uk...d-kent-11908583 ).

But we live in a democracy. Businesses (and the football club is a business) should be able to make decisions themselves about whether they want to open or host an event and we, the paying public, should be able to make decisions about whether or not we wish to take any risks associated with attending. Sometimes we make the wrong decisions - but that is our right. The police should be defending our rights and not removing them.

[CaleyD]

We weren't due to play on Friday and you don't have to go through/cross the Tay Bridge, Forth Bridge or Auchterarder to get from Dundee to Inverness.

A9 was not closed at Dunkeld, but the A822 was closed from the A9 junction at Dunkeld and the A92 was closed for a short while due to an accident after a speeding driver ended up on his roof (could happen in any weather)....is that sufficient evidence that I have actually been keeping an eye on things, or do you still think I'm sitting here making it all up?

[Heilandee]

I reckon Wednesday was too early for the SPL to implement a blanket call off,but there's obviously an element of damned if they damned if they don't here,however it also highlights a lack of consistency by those running Scottish football,obviuosly it wasn't too dangerous for Peterhead players and supporters to venture out on the roads to Alloa?

[tm4tj]

Whatever, talk to the hand.................

The right decision was made. You can't please all of the people all of the time, sometimes you can't please people on here at all.

[Johnboy]

I can't make it any clearer than I already have. Lives were at risk for the sake of a few football games. The SPL have taken a decision to aleviate the burden and removed the onus from them. Surely better to err on the side of caution.

Lives are at stake on the A9 or A96 every day of the week no matter what state the roads are in. You could possibly even argue that more lives are lost on these roads in the middle of summer due to the increased speed of the traffic.

As others have said the timing of this decision 3 days before the match was due to take place was farcical. And as it turned out there was absolutely no reason whatsoever why the game shouldn't have gone ahead.

Just think about it.... We could have been on here right now having great fun arguing about the game went, about how bad the pies were, how useless the home support was, how inept the officials were, and whether we should have won by 3 or more goals....

And is Ross Tokely a man or a myth?

Instead however, we've turned this thread into a petty, meaningless squabble. I'm off to watch Strictly Come Dancing now, to see if Ann Widdecombe will finally get her comeuppance.

[tm4tj]

Aye, right eenuff mun, much snow in Cyprus then.

[gingerjaggy]

i am gutted there was no football this weekend but it was the right decision. I dont know what it is like up north but down here in stirling it aint great. all trains were cancelled from glasgow and edinburgh on friday.. My sister went down to england with my mum and see is in dundee at uni and she struggled to get back. She did but i think it would have sevearly affected the dundee united away support. My um drove up the A9 yesterday to get home in caithness and even though it was impossible it wasnt great in places so right decision from me

[Johnboy]

My um drove up the A9 yesterday to get home in caithness and even though it was impossible it wasnt great in places so right decision from me

[12th Man]

Shouldn't this be put to bed by now.

Why not all pull together and focus on the defeat of Rangers next weekend.

[+DoofersDad]

Let's compromise and debate whether the Rangers game will be called off or not. If the weather makes it difficult for the away support to travel I think it should definately go ahead.

[TopSix]

Let's compromise and debate whether the Rangers game will be called off or not. If the weather makes it difficult for the away support to travel I think it should definately go ahead.

Most of the 'away' 'fans' live locally. Unfotunately.

[Johnboy]

I'll add my agreement to Caley D and Johnboy. If the home club says they can host the game, the away team say they can get there and an appropriate referee can confirn the pitch is playable, then that should be that - game on. Of course, those involved need to make decisions early to prevent fans travelling when games are called off but it should be for the the clubs and the referee to decide and not the SPL or the police.

Looks like Richie agrees with us as well, to be sure!

Good article this....

[Tug]

I'll add my agreement to Caley D and Johnboy. If the home club says they can host the game, the away team say they can get there and an appropriate referee can confirn the pitch is playable, then that should be that - game on. Of course, those involved need to make decisions early to prevent fans travelling when games are called off but it should be for the the clubs and the referee to decide and not the SPL or the police.

Looks like Richie agrees with us as well, to be sure!

Good article this....

good article indeed...and perhaps explains alot of terrys anger with the bit about him finding out second hand

[tm4tj]

But inaccurate. It's not County's indoor complex.

Frustrated at not playing does not mean it's ok to further endanger the species.