GARY KEOWN: People are putting their lives at risk to travel to matches while authorities in Scotland bury their heads in the snow

Here’s a revolutionary idea. When there’s an amber weather warning out there on a Friday covering a sizeable chunk of the weekend and people are being warned to stay in their houses, how’s about the SPFL, their clubs, Police Scotland and the Met Office put their heads together and make a call to postpone any football matches which will involve fans or teams travelling in, or through, the worst affected areas.

When that weather warning gets extended early-doors on Saturday morning, they get back on their Zoom calls or whatever and tweak their policy on automatic call-offs to suit. No blame game, no uncertainty, no wasting of folk’s time, no question of individuals being left to make their own decisions on heading out in conditions Captain Oates would have thought twice about.

It happens in other walks of life where public events are concerned. Look at Perth and Kinross Council this week. Despite all the work involved in setting up and planning their annual, weekend-long Christmas Lights Switch-On — a major local affair, by the way — they took a decision on Friday to knock it on the head.

Not purely because of weather conditions in the city centre, but ‘due to safety concerns and potential difficulties with travel from outwith Perth’.

Simple. Disappointing, for sure, but simple. And sensible. Something the likes of professional football — given the many thousands of people it has taking to the highways and byways week in, week out — could follow as a matter of course with ease, right?

Naaaaaaahhhh. Much better to keep the head under the blankets, put the fingers in the ears and let the absolute chaos that unfolded across the card yesterday play out. Honestly, how many times must we bear witness to this rank stupidity before something is done?

People should not be placed in a position where they are putting life and limb at risk to go and watch a game of football. Or play in a game of football. Because, let’s be clear, this applies equally to players for whom there must be some kind of duty of care.

Players, for example, like the Stenhousemuir squad forced to set out up the A9 to a game against Cove Rangers, whose coach was trapped in snow near Broxden roundabout, just outside Perth, and then discovered the match had been postponed anyway.

Cove Rangers said the call-off was down to public safety after ‘lengthy discussions with the SPFL over the past few hours’. Not lengthy enough. The game, like Clyde’s visit to Elgin, should have been called off the day before. Along with countless other fixtures.

Look at Caley Thistle’s trip to Queen of the South. Any supporters planning to travel south would have left home long before the lunchtime announcement that it had bitten the dust because of a waterlogged pitch.

It’s not just about the state of the playing surface, though. A large percentage of these folk would almost certainly have been sitting stuck on the snowbound A9 — an unfit-for-purpose road that kills and maims more than enough people as it is thanks to the broken promises of the Scottish Government — when the word came through.

And, yet, from clubs here, there and everywhere, silence. Just along the road from Stenny’s team bus was St Johnstone, an amateur-hour outfit that really have to start getting their act together on so many different fronts under their new ownership.

Kilmarnock supporters heading there would have had to travel through Broxden. Yet, there was complete silence on the state of the pitch, the conditions around McDiarmid Park, the wisdom of travelling. Not a dicky bird until 1.09pm. And even then, the message sent out carried no meaningful information whatsoever, other than the fact the club had ‘been in constant dialogue’ with the SPFL and Killie. Within minutes, the kick-off had been pushed back to 3.15pm. Truth is, it should never have gone ahead in the first place.

As always, it was down to depending on random reports from members of the public on social media for the most accurate information on the likelihood of games taking place as planned.

A Hamilton Accies fan page detailed problems with access roads and infrastructure even though their visitors Raith Rovers insisted they had been told both at 9.30am and 11.45am that everything was fine. Sure enough, the match bit the dust in the end.

The M8 was at an absolute standstill as Dundee United headed to Ibrox — for a kick-off eventually delayed 45 minutes because the Tangerines’ bus arrived late — and Celtic fans made plans to head the other way to Tynecastle.

The Queensferry Crossing was closed because of falling ice with Hibs fans going to Dundee. The only thing the Dens Park side had to say of any real import was that only one food kiosk, for some inexplicable reason, would be open in the South Enclosure — so forget it if you fancied a pie or a Bovril to stave off hypothermia after your travels.

It says something that some clubs felt the need to take things into their own hands with regard to offering advice to their travelling supporters. Motherwell, who drove north on Friday, sent out a message on social media advising their punters to forget about making the journey to Dingwall for the game with Ross County. Dunfermline, whose kick-off had to be delayed after they became bogged down in traffic, also advised their faithful to stay at home instead of heading for Ayr United.

And, still, it got worse and worse as the day went on. Edinburgh City revealed at 3pm — yes, 3pm — that their game with East Fife was off, because the playing surface was gubbed.

Aberdeen fans who braved the conditions to head for Paisley, meanwhile, discovered on their arrival that absolutely no one had the foggiest idea if the game with St Mirren was going ahead or not.

After an initial inspection of the surface around two o’clock, the kick-off was pushed back to 4pm with referee John Beaton having another look at the pitch at 2.55pm and deciding it was okay after all.  

By the end of play yesterday, 11 games out of 13 in the three lower leagues had been called off, with five out of six going ahead in the Premiership with late starting times thanks, in all cases but one, to the unbridled chaos on the roads. 

It just isn’t good enough. It is no way to treat paying customers. And it makes already treacherous driving conditions all the more unsafe for everyone.

Of course, there is an easy answer. Agreed, the whole conversation has become as dull as ditchwater and it isn’t worth dwelling on, but this country should have summer football. It is madness that it doesn’t.

If the overwhelming attitude from within the game, though, is that it has to carry on through the dead of winter, then there has to be a far more rigorous approach to calling games off early — particularly when there are amber weather alerts out there days in advance that explain, in detail, just how bad things are going to be.

It is simple common sense. Yet, in this crumbling, ill-prepared, ill-constructed, dysfunctional, ambition-free mess of a country we call home, that is a resource notable only for its scarcity. Both in football and beyond.

Thelin ingenuity keeps his injured players included

It has been a week of interesting revelations at Aberdeen.

The one from the club AGM that plans for a move to a new stadium at the beach are not happening in the ‘short to medium term’ came as no great surprise.

Having spent 20 years now talking about moving to a new ground at Bellfield, Kingsford or by the water, perhaps it’s time the board faced up to reality and had a proper look at what can be done to tart up Pittodrie before it falls apart completely.

What proved of greater interest, though, were the details of what has been going on with midfielder Dante Polvara during his recovery from a hamstring tear.

Showing why he has made such a positive early impression both externally and internally, it turns out manager Jimmy Thelin kept the American heavily involved in the life of the club by getting him to work on set-pieces along with first-team coach Peter Leven.

Something similar happened with Leighton Clarkson when he was out with shoulder problems. And it was Clarkson’s admission over Thelin’s approach to keeping injured players in the body of the kirk that really raised eyebrows.

‘I have never really seen that before, since I have been involved in football,’ said the one-time Liverpool player.

Sure enough, how many times have you heard players talk about the loneliness of being injured, of being stuck in the gym with no one other than the physio, of feeling isolated?

Thelin’s policy of handing out other football-related jobs to make important assets feel they are contributing seems a no-brainer. That’s why Clarkson’s admission he has never heard of anyone else doing it seem quite shocking.

Just another addition to the long list of reasons why it is often hard to figure out how football clubs go about so many bits of their business.

It’s only a matter of time before Clement and Gray are sent packing 

It’s not a question of whether Philippe Clement and David Gray are toast. That’s been clear for some time. The only remaining thing to be ascertained with those two is which of them gets the bullet first.

Clement has lost the plot at Rangers. Yesterday’s 1-1 draw with Dundee United changes little – other than making it all the more peculiar that Nils Koppen was promoted to technical director.

Surely the new CEO, along with incoming chairman Malcolm Offord, should have had to sign that off as part of some wider strategy for the football department. Likewise, it is probably better waiting until these guys are in place before Clement gets the chop.

That’s why Gray looks likely to fall ahead of the Belgian following Hibs’ latest collapse at Dundee. Bill Foley and his Black Knight group are more involved at Easter Road, as they should be given how useless Ian Gordon has been, and that ought to make the manager’s future – and maybe that of others — a fait accompli.