Gary Locke insists Scotland's governing bodies need to act to protect the financial security of clubs after Raith Rovers had to be bailed out by supporters to help them through a fixtures nightmare.
The Kirkcaldy outfit play their first game in almost three weeks tomorrow away to St Mirren and have not enjoyed a home match at 3 p.m. on a Saturday for two months.
The Stark’s Park men have played just twice on home soil since their goalless draw at the traditional weekend kick-off time against Hibs on October 15.
But their clash with Queen of the South on October 29 was switched to 5.15 for television and their encounter with Ayr United November 22 was rearranged for a cold Tuesday night.
Without a game in the Scottish Cup a fortnight ago and then with last weekend’s home meeting with Morton postponed because their opponents had their frozen-off cup match rescheduled for last Saturday, Rovers were left facing cash-flow problems.
Donations totalling £14,000 came in from supporters’ groups to help plug the gap but Locke insists more should be done when scheduling games to ensure clubs do not face such a scenario in future.
The Raith boss, who suffered the effects of administration when in charge at Hearts, said: “It’s been a while since we’ve played and it’s something we’ve been really disappointed about, the fact that we’re at this stage of the season and we’ve not played for three weeks. It’s pretty poor.
“For me, it’s certainly something that should be looked at. It’s nothing to do with us that (Morton’s) Scottish Cup game was off.
“We’ve gone three weeks without a game - and we’ve actually gone two months without playing a home game at three o’clock on a Saturday - and that’s not right.
“It’s certainly something I think the powers that be should have a look at.
“Our players need to keep playing and we need money coming through the doors, and the fact we’ve not had that means the fans have had to put their hands into their pockets to help out.
“It’s just not right.
“This is a great club, a really well run club, but we need a hand.
“We can’t afford to go two months without a home game at three o’clock on a Saturday. I don’t think any club in our position could do that.
“Everybody knows that clubs are struggling these days just to make ends meet.”
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here