Craig Thomson ruined my weekend

As the midday kickoff time for Inverness-Celtic approached, the Highland capital was bathed in spring sunshine; the sky was blue, there was a slight breeze coming in off the Moray Firth, and you couldn't have asked for a better backdrop to a game of football.

Which makes it all the more farcical that, two hours earlier, the match had been called off.

The rain on Friday night had been torrential to the point where my sleep was actually disturbed in the early hours. But with the previous few days having been generally dry, my only thought regarding the Celtic game was "a muddy pitch will level things up a bit".

But apparently Caley's pitch doesn't drain as well as it should - mainly because the undersoil heating that is compulsory in the SPL (more of that later) prevents the pitch being forked properly. But at 10-30, when the postponement was announced (referee Craig Thomson had actually called it off as early as 09-45) I looked out at my back garden. The grass was damp. There were no standing puddles on the patio. And the sun had been out for an hour.

Apparently Caley and Celtic asked for a later inspection...but were turned down. They then came to the shared conclusion that delaying the kickoff till 1pm would give the pitch sufficient recovery time, so they phoned the SPL to ask their permission...and no-one was in. No-one. On a matchday. So, on a beautiful afternoon for football, there was no football to watch.

It's just another addition to the long list of cock-ups that have characterized our national game this season. 2010-11 will be remembered as the season where Scottish football became a laughing stock;

The season where numerous matches were postponed because undersoil heating doesn't actually work when it gets properly cold, or because the streets outside stadiums were icy; the season where one half of the Old Firm uses legal loopholes to make sure the punishment for their manager's petulant childish tantrums is minimized;

The season where the SFA was exposed as completely unfit-for-purpose by their management of the above's antics;

The season where the other half of the Old Firm finally admitted they have been financially mismanaged to the point of bankruptcy, only a few months after forking £4million on a striker;

The season where, with fans complaining about the tedium of having to watch their side play the same teams again and again and again, the SPL instead pushed for a reduction in size...so fans will have to watch their side play the same teams again and again and again.

The Edinburgh derby is on TV as I write this, but I'm switching the channel to Craven Cottage as soon as Fulham-Blackpool starts. Because if I wanted to watch a circus, I would at least expect some acrobats, some elephants and a lion-tamer. I don't want Neil Lennon as the ringmaster for a bunch of clowns.

L.