The reason for Scotland's switch of training base has been revealed.

National team assistant manager John Carver has slammed the playing surface at the Oriam as a "health risk".

Steve Clarke and his side will now prepare for games at Lesser Hampden, just outside the national stadium.

The A-team players were pictured being put through paces earlier today as they gear up for the start of their Euro 2024 qualification campaign.

Scotland will take on Cyprus on Saturday before facing Spain next Tuesday evening.

But rather than get set for the games in Edinburgh at the Oriam, Clarke has opted to switch their base to Queen's Park's home ground.

His No.2 Carver says this is because of the "safety hazard" with the surface at Oriam.

He told the media: "With all due respect to Oriam, it was a safety hazard in my eyes. It looked good on the eye, you guys were there quite often and you only saw us working in small areas.

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"But for some reason, the surface would just give way, so for the guys playing on it, it was a health risk.

"I'm surprised we didn't get any serious injuries from it, especially with the pace and the tempo that these guys were playing at and are playing at now. It was a huge concern.

"We were having to curtail the training sometimes. They're very competitive and we were having to say 'take it easy.' Certain sessions you did, like defending, were very very difficult."

Scotland will be based in a hotel in Glasgow city centre and will train at Lesser Hampden in the build-up to the Group A match against Cyprus at Hampden on Saturday.    

 

Carver expressed his happiness with the new set-up and predicted it could even encourage more players to commit their futures to Scotland.

“It’s a magnificent facility,” he said. “The branding is nice. It feels like a football environment. At Oriam it felt like a rugby environment with us being tenants there.

“It feels like a proper football environment so the guys were very vocal last night, the atmosphere was great.

“I think it makes a difference. I think if we are trying to tempt some players to come and play for Scotland rather than England or Ireland or Wales, if we are giving them the best we can they will go and talk about it.

“So Angus (Norwich City goalkeeper Gunn) will go back and say ‘this was good, that was good, training facilities were excellent’ and there may be someone in the Norwich team, for example, who could play for Scotland. You never know.

“You know what footballers are like. They are quite insular and they talk to each other and it’s word of mouth and it spreads.

“So when they come and see the branding, and the feeling, and you walk into the room and it was like ‘wow’. Straight away I thought it felt like we are geared up for the right thing.

“Now, we have to do the business on the pitch, that’s the most important bit. But things like this are very, very important.”