Vale of Leithen cry foul play

Kate Smail • Published 20 Oct 2009 12:14 0 Comments

VALE of Leithen were left out in the cold when they found themselves locked out of the Gala Fairydean's home ground on Monday night.

Vale had booked the ground for a practice match against Leithen Rovers ahead of their Scottish Cup Tie match this Saturday, but when they arrived at the ground it was deserted.

Alex Currie, Secretary of Vale of Leithen, said: "We had booked the ground to originally play Gala Rovers, but they couldn't raise a team, so we agreed to play Leithen Rovers instead.

"The game was booked in advance, but when we got there it was all locked up so we phoned Gala Fairydean to find out what was happening.

"They told us the pitch hadn't been marked so we couldn't play, so I offered to mark it myself.

"There were about 50 of us standing outside the ground and I think it's disgraceful that none of the committee members from Fairydean would come down and explain to us what was going on.

"The referee had travelled down from Glasgow and some of our players had come from as far away as Berwick and Edinburgh. We are very upset by the way we have been treated."

However, Kevin Janiak, Gala Fairydean secretary, said it was just a simple misunderstanding.

"We had asked the council to mark the pitch as we hadn't had a home game in a while and it really needed to be done.

"For some reason this didn't happen. Although Alec offered to mark the pitch himself, it really wasn't an option as it was dark, needed to be measured out and would have taken at least two hours.

"The pitch was locked up because there had been a mix-up and the groundsman was under the impression the game had been cancelled.

"It is unfortunate it happened, but it was nothing more than a simple misunderstanding."

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