Our Manager Thomas Devine has his say on yesterdays postponement away to Campbeltown Pupils.

“Frustrated, disappointed and quite angry probably sums up yesterday – at the start of the day we have set out with ambitions and high hopes of finishing the year top of the table, to endure the worst case scenario that if I’m honest I felt was a strong possibility all week.
Campbelltown are a club I have enjoyed managing against, they are run well against difficult circumstances and have lots of good people involved in the club. So it’s not a personal dig at the club but in my opinion yesterday was very much avoidable and hopefully some lessons can be learned going forward to avoid similar situations.

Yesterday a lot was made of the fact protocols etc were followed and reflecting on it, technically they have been, but in my opinion there needs to be more flexibility applied in some of the protocols and better decision making in place.

A few weeks before the game we offered a switch of venue, as looking at our fixture list we had two free weeks before this fixture and given the likely weather, we wanted to try to ensure a game went ahead – within their rights this was knocked back by Campbeltown due to player commitments. Saturday the week before the game was abandoned as a referee felt it had become unplayable, even the best pitches need recovery time, it’s been a reasonable wet week and although Saturdays forecast was reasonable, it is Scotland and there was enough risk there before sat morning.

The referee is in a no win situation, and explained his thinking clearly and I can’t argue with the reasoning.
I can understand Campbeltown are keen to the get the game on, believe me after a 4 hour journey, we all want to play but there should have been enough doubt there to avoid in my opinion.

As I said technically no one is a fault, protocols have been followed but the biggest impact has been on my club, my players and at no point were we at the forefront of the decision making process or the protocols.

So disappointed from a football perspective, financial perspective and hope that although protocols have been followed that some form of lessons learned can be employed to ensure this can be avoided going forward.”

Thomas Devine (Manager)