[St Charles Owl]

I think there should be some kinda mandatory fine/penalty set up in the SPFL regs re this issue. We keep classifying the Scot Premiership as our 'top league' and I think member clubs should be prompted to provide a 'minimum standard' of pitch provision that satisfies the acceptable footie requirements of said top league! This should also cover an artificial footie surface as well esp after watching the weekend footie shenanigans at Hamilton's ground, some of them laughable (incl the awful refereeing!), where players were clearly slipping on a greasy or icy surface and the stupid referee not interpreting a proper 'foul' under such circumstances!! Even the violent conduct of an incensed Accies' player named Skondras, was nothing short of astounding in proper refereeing terms but thank god the ref actually booked him after being manhandled by him!!

I think thats fine in theory but in practice all sorts of things go into keeping a pitch in good shape. Also, what would be the minimum standard, how would that be measured equally? One club might have a stand that shades most of the pitch at this time of year, making it almost impossible for the grass to grow let alone recover from a match. Some grounds have naturally good drainage, others don't, games get played after a lot of rain in one half of a city, but the team in the other half get a few more days for the water to drain as they are away from home in the match after or during the rain.

There are too many variables for each pitch to try to set a standard unless the league insists on every team installing a Desso type pitch, which will cost at least 1m quid like it did for us or they have to heavily rely on growing lamps that cost a fortune to run and would likely need to be on for 24 hrs a day. Either way while teams like the top 6 or so could potentially afford it, the rest would be bankrupted by that sort of expenditure. Its December in Scotland, the likelihood is the pitches will be suffering to varying degrees at every ground.