Recreation Ground Alloa

By FOS Editor
December 4 2010

One game survives in Scotland this afternoon when Alloa play hosts to Peterhead in the Second Division

Alloa have been working tirelessly in the last few days to ensure their 3G pitch would be clear of snow ahead of this afternoon's game. This morning they had to wait on the local police deeming the surrounds to the ground as being safe for people to travel, and this was granted this morning.

The game going ahead gives the Wasps the chance to move into third place with a win against the team currently sitting in second bottom place.

It all seems a bit ironic a Second Division club can get a game on while the SPL clubs, who all have "adequate pitch protection" and as a result playable pitches can't!! The streets in Alloa can't be much worse than any other town in Scotland either - all seems strange.

It also seems strange that Peterhead are allowed to travel the 150 miles from Aberdeenshire, while it is deemed unsafe for Kilmarnock to travel 30 miles or so to Motherwell, or Hamilton the 60 miles to Perth.

It all seems as though the SPL made a rash early decision on Wednesday and we could have had the six games players today.

It also brings up the question on whether we should be looking to use plastic pitches more widely, although it should be noted while Alloa have their pitch playable Airdrie who have a similar pitch still have their game off.

Alloa Chairman Mike Mulraney obviously sees it as the way forward as he told the club's website, "If we can get the game to go ahead on Saturday perhaps its a lesson we can take and export. Because if we are going to have this inclement weather regularly in winter we have to make sure we can get the games on when we can for the fans.

"Two months with no games for clubs will put clubs under there is no doubt about it, if clubs have no cash flow for two months they are going to be in trouble and some of them will need to take every opportunity to look at making these games happen.

"Certainly for many of the clubs the conditions around the grounds at present were a real problem but any of them on grass would not go ahead anyway so only clubs with a G3 surface would be given a fighting chance and we will certainly be doing our best to give this game a great chance of going ahead."