As Rangers’ Scottish Premiership clash with Dundee was called off due to a waterlogged pitch, you’d have been forgiven for thinking John Nelms and co would be apologising profusely.
After all, thousands had already made the journey north to watch the game be played, whilst the Sky Sports cameras had the Dens Park clash as the weekend’s marquee match-up.
Given Celtic had beaten St Johnstone to top the Scottish Premiership the day before, all eyes were on Dundee and for the fourth time this season the club failed to produce a match-worthy pitch.
It is the only pitch in the whole of the UK’s top footballing leagues, let alone Scotland, which was deemed unplayable this weekend.
Rangers right to be furious at state of Dens Park pitch
Pre-match images of the park showed just how much of a state the Dundee ground-staff – who might be in a nervous meeting or two this week – have allowed the surface to fall into.
The ball wouldn’t bounce in some areas of the park, others were patchy and dangerous with disgusting mud, and the drainage of the surface had been desperately reduced to relentless forking into the turf just hours before kick-off.
Throw into the mix the fact that Dundee, in some perplexingly unprofessional behaviour, failed to properly inform Rangers of the situation, and anyone with a sense of self-awareness would be throwing their hands up here.
There’s a perfectly justifiable reason why Rangers are furious here and so much of it stems from how Dundee have handled the situation on and off the pitch
But when you see the response of the Dundee managing director John Nelms – who sought to blame just about everyone and everything except from Dundee – a lack of genuine contrition is unsurprising.
John Nelms fails to take Dundee responsibility
Speaking after the game, Nelms revealed he had a completely unsuitable request to move the tie to 3pm quite rightly shut down by the SPFL.
Firstly, fans have travelled for 12pm, as have the Rangers team, and the duty is on Dundee to provide adequate drainage and maintenance on the park for this time, regardless of the weather. The buck stops with them.
A small delay is understandable. A three hour delay – without any genuine guarantee of being able to play – is an insult to match-going fans.
Secondly, the match was to be broadcast live on Sky Sports – who make a vital albeit contextually nominal contribution to the game – and a later kick off would’ve clashed with other programming.
Thirdly – and perhaps most importantly – taking one glance at the surface it is abundantly clear that there is absolutely no guarantee it would be safe to play on days let alone hours later.
We’d urge Dundee and John Nelms to instead take some responsibility, ask why this keeps happening at their ground, and to have a little more respect for the other teams in the division.
Match call offs are becoming increasingly routine for Dundee and it’s a slap in the face for the more professional outfits in the league who are preparing all week for these matches.
If you ask us, this is almost as embarrassing for Dundee and John Nelms as that time their dodgy email systems lost and then subsequently changed a crucial post-Covid vote. We said almost.
On an unrelated note, the team who stand to benefit most from this is Old Firm rivals and Dundee’s old chums Celtic, who could be top of the Premiership for an upcoming trip to Ibrox.
