Game called off – due to a lack of grass!
Cowdenbeath boss Gary Bollan blasted Elgin City’s “old ash pitch” which led to Saturday’s League 2 match being postponed in bizarre circumstances. Referee Gavin Ross called off the game an hour before kick off, deeming gravel on the dry Borough Briggs surface to be dangerous to the players. Bollan backed the ref, but was left to count the cost of a wasted trip north. “It’s massively disappointing. It’s worse than playing on an old ash pitch, so when the safety of the players is a concern I think the referee is in no doubt but to call it off,” he said. “The stones on it are a hazard for players because if defenders have got to slide they are going to rip their leg off. “We pointed it out to the referee and he had a look and I think he said it is dangerous. It was the ref who called the game off, it was his call. “If he said the game was on we would have been happy enough to play.” The SPFL could now punish Elgin for their failure to bring their pitch up to a playable standard. Yet chairman Graham Tatters insisted the surface is no worse than it has been for matches already played at Borough Briggs this season. “It was like this for the last home game and the one before that,” he said. “The referees have mentioned it to us but just said they were marking us down, and the games went ahead. “I’ve got no argument with the decision, but I can’t change it. We need water and we need growth and we can’t get it. “We followed the same procedure this year as we follow every year. “We prepared the goalmouths, brought turf in we then put 90 tonnes of sand and gravel on the pitch, we verti-drained it, everything was done in the normal manner but we’ve never had rain. “We’ve had the fire brigade on it hosing it down, we’ve had one of the guys who does crop spraying, we’ve had about 15,000 litres of water on here and it just disappears. “We just can’t do anything about it.” Tatters said Elgin will take extra measures to ensure next week’s match against Stirling Albion goes ahead. “The only thing we can do is get an industrial hoover in and try to lift it.”