Dundee boss Tony Docherty 'stunned' by postponement of game with Aberdeen
- Published
Dundee players trained at Dens Park after the game was called off
Dundee manager Tony Docherty was "absolutely stunned" that his side's Scottish Premiership match with Aberdeen was postponed because of a waterlogged pitch.
Referee David Munro made the decision less than an hour before kick-off, saying several areas of standing water at Dens Park gave him "concerns for player safety".
Dundee criticised the way the decision was handled, saying in a statement: "The club are extremely unhappy with the actions of the referee.
"There was no consultation with Police Scotland, club officials, either manager, the SPFL delegate, the match commander, the safety team or the grounds team.
"The decision was announced publicly without giving club officials and Police Scotland the opportunity to manage supporter safety considerations."
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Docherty was adamant the gone should have gone ahead.
"I'm absolutely stunned," he said. "We've got our team training on the pitch. It's 2:57, there's no rain at all. I just find it a bit surreal that the boys are training on a pitch that we should be playing on against Aberdeen.
"I've been here since nine o'clock this morning; there was never any hesitation about the game being on.
"The referee never discussed anything with me - not one thing. I was in the middle of my team meeting when an employee of the club told me the game was off. That's how I found out."
Dundee general manager Greg Fenton echoed Docherty's frustration and believes Munro should have given groundstaff more time to make the pitch playable.
"If there were concerns for player safety, obviously Dundee wouldn't have players training on it," Fenton said.
"The referee arrived at 13:40, made his decision 15 minutes after that, consulted with the police, and then spoke to the coaching team.
"You see other games around the country get an extra 20 minutes to work on a specific area of the park. That opportunity wasn't given to us."
Aberdeen were due to have 3,000 fans at Dens Park and manager Barry Robson's main frustration was in the disruption for the travelling support.
"Aberdeen's terrible with snow today - they've come all the way down to see their team," he said. "They're stood at the turnstiles, it's Christmas, and it gets called off at that time. That's what annoys me."
Hibernian's visit to Ross County in the Scottish Premiership on Saturday was also postponed because of a waterlogged pitch.