Certain parts of the Falkirk pitch were deemed unplayable

Falkirk have written to the Scottish FA after being unhappy that their home match against Partick Thistle was called off an hour before kick-off.

The Falkirk Stadium ground survived an 1100 GMT pitch inspection but failed a second inspection at 1400 GMT.

Speaking in the wake of the match being called off, Falkirk chief executive George Craig said he was "astonished".

However, Partick Thistle manager Ian McCall agreed that the match should not have been played.

Craig was angry that the decision to postpone the match was not taken at the earlier pitch inspection.

He told BBC Scotland: "I actually can't describe how I feel. When we got the pitch inspection at 1100 GMT, I specifically dealt with that. The decision had to be taken at 1100 GMT.

"If the pitch isn't playable then it's not playable but the pitch is playable. Our team's going to play a bounce game on the pitch. There's nothing wrong with the pitch. It's not perfect but it's playable.

Craig was unhappy at the lateness of the call-off

"If we're now at the stage when we're saying it's got to be absolutely 100%, with the type of extreme weather that we've got, there'll be no choice but to have a winter shutdown because you won't be able to get a pitch absolutely 100%.

"At any time of the year, you could look at a football pitch and look at a particular area and say, 'well, that's not 100%'.

"He (the referee) really just said that these areas that were dotted about the pitch, in his opinion, represented a problem to the players.

"Falkirk have now incurred considerable costs, we've effectively incurred all the costs of putting on a game, including running our undersoil heating for a week and we've got no income.

"I honestly do not know what more we could have done to get this game on."

The initial inspection was carried out by grade one official Stephen Finnie but the actual match referee Matt Northcroft took the decision to postpone an hour before kick-off.

I don't think it's even up for debate, there's five, 10% of the pitch that's brick hard Partick Thistle manager Ian McCall

A club statement read: "The same situation arose at the start of the year against St Johnstone in January. A fundamental problem seems to be in each of these cases the morning pitch inspection was not carried out by the match official."

But Thistle manager McCall concurred with Northcroft's assessment of the pitch.

"I would say the referee's made the correct call," McCall told BBC Scotland. "I feel for George Craig, 90% of the park's playable and they've worked their socks off obviously.

"But, undoubtedly, and I don't think it's even up for debate, there's 5-10% of the pitch that's brick hard.

"And how it passed at 1100 GMT is beyond me and I think that's the only issue that's needed to be addressed here.

"It's unfortunate and it's not nice. We're all disappointed but things like this happen, we're having a particularly bad winter and we just try and cope as best we can."

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