Winter of discontent

The recent snow and freezing temperatures have been causing havoc across Scottish life with Scottish football one of the many victims. The snow first began to fall towards the end of November and a ball has not been kicked in anger in either the SPL or the SFL since the 27th of November.

Like many clubs, Cowdenbeath FC has felt the pinch with no home game at Central Park since the 6th of November which has had a serious impact on the cashflow. The postponement of the home derby against Dunfermline Athletic (as a result of the match officials' strike rather than the weather) was a significant blow with a bumper crowd expected to watch the game under the new foodlight system along with record numbers booked in for hospitality. The Club, in collaboration with SFL peers, will be pursuing all avenues  for compensation for this loss of income but the further heavy snowfall this week, which brought Scotland's network system to a standstill, has put Falkirk's visit to Central Park on Saturday into some doubt which will put further pressure on finances. All in all, Jimmy Nicholl and his team have not seen action since the Scottish Cup tie away at Peterhead on 20th November.

In addition, the weather and lack of available indoor training facilities has thrown Nicholl's training schedule into disarray. The full-timers have been training at an indoor facility in Edinburgh but the mainly part-time first team squad have only managed to train once in the last ten days due to the lack of facilities.

"We have found an indoor pitch that we can hire in Edinburgh during the day for the full-timers but finding facilities for the part-timers has been more of a concern", said Nicholl.

"The part-timers normally train at Beath High and Bathgate but both are out of bounds due to the snow and trying to find an evening indoor booking has been extremely problematic. We got them together for the first time as a group for a week on Saturday for a training session and it will probably be this weekend at the earliest before we are able to get them together again. It is very frustrating and i'm relying on individuals to keep themselves fit in the gym and road runs but with games, hopefully, coming up we need to work as a group.

"Despite they lay-off, the mood in the squad is very positive and we are all desperate for a game of football and an opportunity to pick up some more First Division points.

"The weather conditions and the clamour for facilities again highlights the dearth of indoor pitches in Scotland. This is something that need to be addressed if Scotland is serious about the development of footballers."