'Early call off was ridiculous': St Andrews United boss Robbie Raeside rages at Oakley United postponement

Promotion-chasing Saints had been champing at the bit to play the East of Scotland League first division match at their Fife rivals but received news at 9am that the frozen Blairwood Park surface had failed a pitch inspection.

"It’s just a bit frustrating,” Raeside told the Herald and Citizen. “I know there’s a lot of pitches where the game would be off if you inspected them at that time. By midday it was seven degrees and the sun was splitting the sky.

"It wasn’t as if we were travelling a good distance, so Oakley could have turned round and said to us: ‘Can we inspect the pitch at 11.30am or 12 o’clock?’ and we’d have been fine with that.

“I couldn’t believe when I heard the game was off because it was a beautiful day but it’s one of those things.

"My assistant lives in Oakley and there was a boys club game on half a mile down the road at Saturday lunchtime.

"It's just been a ridiculous situation for our game to be off if boys clubs games are going on in the same village and we’re meant to be a professional league.”

Raeside said that, as Oakley’s pitch had taken “a hammering” the previous week in their game against Vale of Leithen, they asked for the inspection as there had then been a lot of heavy rain in the following days.

"I totally understand that,” he added. “But when it’s been fairly dry in the run up to the game and the forecast is for a bit of frost but then it’s to be seven degrees by lunchtime, why do the inspection at 9 o’clock?

"Apparently a league rule is that pitch inspections must be done before 10am to accommodate teams travelling but we’re a fairly local team to Oakley.

"So to me, our postponement doesn’t make sense. And the game wasn’t called off for waterlogging, it was called off for frost.”

Saints’ promotion prospects were boosted on Thursday night, when EoS beaks met to ratify that the shock closure of first division rivals Rosyth – and the subsequent ‘null and voiding’ of all their results this term – saw the top three teams of Dunipace, Newtongrange Star and Camelon Juniors all docked three points won against Stevie Crawford’s team.

"I am aware of what happened to Rosyth benefitting us,” Raeside said. “But to be honest I’m not even looking at the league table just now because we’ve got so many games to play.

"We’re at the end of February and we’ve virtually still got half the season to play. I think we’ve got 13 league games left. Next week's a big week, three games in a week, so we can take a massive step forward with some positive results.”

Fifth-placed St Andrews’ tally of 33 points from 15 fixtures has them seven points behind third-placed Camelon, who currently occupy the final promotion slot having played four games more.

Raeside’s team are now gearing up for that aforementioned trio of crucial league games, away to Heriot-Watt University this Saturday (3pm kick-off), before hosting Lochore Welfare on Wednesday, March 6 (7.30pm kick-off) and visiting Arniston Rangers next Saturday, March 9 (2.30pm kick-off).

He added: “Every game in this league is so difficult and competitive that you can’t count your chickens.

"We’ve just got to forget the league table just now, keep playing each game on its merits and see where it takes us.

"Heriot-Watt reached the Alex Jack Cup final this season so they’re a good side.

"They came up just behind us last year in third place and it will be a very difficult game.”

Reece Redpath (hip) will likely be unfit for the Heriot-Watt game, with Lewis Grant struggling with a back problem.