Scottish Premiership club’s pre-season friendly postponed over ‘safety concerns’

REMEMBER the days when there were huge calls for the Scottish football calendar to be shuffled around so football could be played in the summer?

Well, it’s currently the summer and a Scottish Premiership club have had a pre-season clash called-off because of the weather.

There have been plenty of calls for Scottish football’s schedule to be revamped over the years to allow games to be played over the summer months.

Such calls often grow louder when there are large numbers of postponements during the particularly cold, wet and snowy months.

However, it currently summer in Scotland – allegedly.

But even that hasn’t prevented a total washout!

Aberdeen were due to make the short journey to take on Peterhead tonight.

But just hours before kick-off, the Dons’ match League Two outfit has been postponed.

The rain has been bucketing down in the north east and Balmoor has been deemed unplayable.

A picture posted by Aberdeen shows surface water gathered in the area surrounding the pitch.

The rainfall has meant concerns over safety and as a result, the match will now not be taking place – at least not at the planned venue.

The Pittodrie club posted: “Due to the continued heavy rainfall this evening’s pre-season friendly at Balmoor has been postponed after Peterhead notified us of safety concerns at the stadium and the surrounding area.

“The match will now be played at an alternative venue behind closed doors.”

Peterhead had earlier in the day confirmed on social media that the match would be on after being inundated with messages from fans.

However, they were later forced to confirm the unfortunate news that the game now wouldn’t be going ahead.

The club explained why there was such a high concern over safety.

They said: “Unfortunately our optimism from this morning was short-lived as we have now had to make the difficult decision to call this game OFF.

“Although the pitch has held up well, the surrounding roads are now flooding and therefore a safety hazard for fans. This is not something we thought we needed to be concerned about in July and apologise to all those who may have already set off for this match.”

Aberdeen, meanwhile, are targeting a deal for Brann captain Sivert Nilsen.

New boss Jimmy Thelin wants to work with Nilsen, 32, once again having been his boss at Swedish club Elfsborg before.

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