Kirkcaldy & Dysart: After suffering wasted journey, YM boss Craig Ness “massively baffled” game at Oakley United wasn't called off on Saturday morning

Ness told the Fife Free Press that – after receiving an early message from their Fife rivals that Blairwood Park was playable other than a small goalmouth area – he, his coaching staff and playing squad all travelled through with the expectation that the game would be on. But it was then called off at 1.40pm, just 20 minutes before the scheduled kick-off time.

“The boys and I were mega frustrated at the game being called off so late,” Ness said. “Probably everybody in the country had woken up to a heavy frost which brought to our attention: ‘Is the game going to be on or off?’

"We got word from Oakley just after 10am to say that there was a small area in the goalmouth that was hard, but it was taking a key in the ground and they didn’t feel it needed a pitch inspection.

"So we were like: ‘Fine, fair enough, it’s their park, it’s their call’. But when we got to Oakley we saw that the full length of the park up one side maybe about five or six metres onto the park was pure white, hard and then there were a lot of other areas on the park that were still hard as well.

"You could tell that the game was never going to be on, so I don’t know how Oakley came to the conclusion they did at 10am.

"I was massively baffled by their morning statement. To be told that there’s no real issues, then to turn up and just under a quarter of the park’s white with frost, to me that's an issue.

"With both teams there, the referee arrived and it was suggested both teams do a warm-up on the side of the park to try and break up the frost, which was a long shot.

“Even the bits that the sun was getting to and were getting run on were still very hard.

"It was the Oakley manager’s suggestion and the referee agreed with that but to be honest with you we should never have made the journey, it should have been called off earlier in the morning.

"It was an inconvenience for our guys who travelled and it was an inconvenience for us as a group as well because we had Stark’s Park booked for a friendly, we had teams lined up to play in a friendly.

"Oakley is 35 minutes give or take from Kirkcaldy, but we’ve got guys that stay further afield up the east coast which is another 20 or 30 minutes so they were raging.

"For me, common sense should have prevailed and a pitch inspection done earlier in the morning.

"It would have stopped us travelling, as a match day referee probably would have put it off at 10 o’clock and we would have got a friendly on.”

Ness said it was “bitterly disappointing” to have another weekend without a fixture – the YM last played in a 2-0 league defeat at Camelon Juniors on December 16 – with a home league fixture against Rosyth this Saturday, kick-off 2pm, lying in wait for his side who sit seventh with 20 points from 14 matches.

"We had a good week’s training last week but we desperately need minutes in our legs that games give us,” he said. “We can’t get that at the moment so I really hope that the forecast for this week is more kind and we can get the Rosyth game on.

"Rosyth have an astro so they’ve been playing and are probably two or three games ahead of us. They’ve got that edge on us so we have to be wary they are just that bit more match sharp."