Inside Dundee v Aberdeen postponement farce: Shock and anger, Dons concerns, referees 'late' arrival, complaint made

Frustration as match at Dens Park postponed just over an hour before kick-off

Referee David Munro conducts a pitch inspection prior to calling off the match between Dundee and Aberdeen at Dens Park. (Photo by Mark Scates / SNS Group)

Furious Dundee have condemned a decision by referee David Munro to call off their Premiership clash with Aberdeen little more than an hour before kick off and with fans already congregating outside.

Hospitality areas at Dens Park were, however, thronged and Fairytale of New York was playing over the stadium Tannoy when word reached those supporters already inside the stadium that the game had been postponed due areas of the pitch being waterlogged. The Aberdeen team news had already been published on social media.

Dundee were adamant that the match was playable and have made a complaint to the SPFL and SFA about the "unnecessary" call off. They already have one outstanding fixture against Aberdeen – postponed in October due to Storm Babet – still to be rescheduled.

Dundee players train on the pitch after the game against Aberdeen was postponed. (Photo by Ross MacDonald / SNS Group)

Dens Park manager Tony Docherty was halfway through a team meeting when he said he got a “chap” on the door to inform him there would be no game that afternoon. Munro had expressed concern for player welfare when calling the match off due to the amount of water sitting in the goalmouth at the Bob Shankly Stand end of the ground. But Dundee are angry that there was no consultation between the referee, the two managers and police before a decision was made.

Munro apparently told the BBC before confirming his decision to the club. According to Docherty, the referee did not speak to him “until the dust had settled” and fans were already being turned away from Dens Park in dismay. Dundee later issued a statement complaining that “half of the referee team” had been late arriving at the stadium in the first place. Normally they would be expected to be in place at 1.30pm.

“The club had monitored the condition of the pitch and were not concerned that the match would be postponed,” read the statement. “The weather forecast was also closely monitored and it was to be dry and windy come 2.30pm which it was.

“When half of the refereeing team arrived, later than would normally be expected, at the Scot Foam (Dens Park) Stadium between 1.40pm and 1.50pm they indicated that they would carry out a full pitch inspection. Following the inspection the referee decided that the game was not going to take place and called the match off.”

Dundee groundsman sweeps water off the pitch to no avail as the match against Aberdeen was postponed. (Photo by Mark Scates / SNS Group)

Dundee wanted more time to tend to the pitch and make it playable to the referee’s satisfaction. They noted Cove Rangers were permitted to delay kick off in their League 1 clash against Edinburgh City until 3.30pm to clear the pitch of snow. The match duly took place. In order to prove a point, Dundee players took part in a full training session on the Dens Park pitch.

“As you can see, the thing that is surreal at the moment is that it is three minutes past three, three minutes after kick-off would be, and my team has already done a 15-minute session,” said Docherty. “And we will be doing a 90-minute session on the pitch, which tells you everything.”

“I am stunned, shocked and really disappointed,” added the Dundee manager. “It is a busy schedule, you organise family life around games of football and now you need to change all that.”

Dundee stressed there were no problems anticipated earlier in the day. “We arrived this morning as normal for the game and there was light rain, but no issues with the pitch at that time,” said Dens Park general manager Greg Fenton. “There were no concerns. The referee arrived at 1.40pm for the game, he did his pitch inspection and had concerns with the away end goalmouth. At that point, with no consultation with the managers or the police, he made his decision to call it off.

“He made his decision then told the managers and police. Would I have expected him to speak to the managers first? All of us - the managers, police, safety team and all together make a decision. He said he had concerns with the water in the goalmouth and player safety. Obviously we’re not happy with that and we’ll be taking it up with the league and the SFA. We will deal with it internally but we will be taking it up with them.

“We have had it a lot worse here, against Motherwell at the start of the season, the Rangers game on 1 November. Those were a lot worse than what this is, in my opinion. You can see from the players training on it. Any event that gets cancelled there’s obviously a cost to that and it will be six figures.”

Aberdeen manager Barry Robson admitted he was “a bit concerned” when he walked across the pitch after the visitors had arrived at Dens Park at 1.30pm. However, he stressed he wanted the game to go ahead and expressed sympathy for the travelling Aberdeen fans.

“It didn’t look great and the rain had started to come," he said. "The ref was out for a good fifteen minutes. I was standing by the tunnel and the ref came over to say it was off. I just wish it was done a bit earlier because I feel sorry for our fans, they have come down here through snow and terrible weather. It was hard to get out of Aberdeen this morning and there’s also the cost to them right before Christmas. So I’m gutted for them.”

Asked if Dundee should have arranged an earlier pitch inspection, given the forecast, he was unsure. “I don’t want to get into anything with anyone else,” he said. “I don’t know what the pitch was like this morning, it might not have been like that so I can’t comment on that. It’s just frustrating.

“We have won two (league) games in a row and wanted to build momentum, but it’s another game called off. So there’s no upside to it for us, we’d prepared properly and were good to go. We’d freshened the team up and were looking forward to it.”

Docherty also made mention of the supporters, with as many as 8,000 expected to attend. The away end – which holds 3,000 – was sold out and a healthy home turnout was expected. “You have 3,000 Aberdeen fans here and I know how passionate they are but more importantly I have all my home fans coming here on the back of good performances and two good teams were going to go hard at it," he said. “Someone just told me the Cove game is rescheduled for 3.30pm to allow it to go ahead. Why was that not considered?"