Celtic's match against Kilmarnock has been postponed before Saturday

By Chick Young BBC Scotland football reporter

A nation shivers.

People are having bed and breakfast in their family saloons on the overtaking lane of the M8. There's enough ice on the suburban avenue of your choice to sink the Titanic. But, as the snow goes on, so it seems must the show.

Scottish football treats the white-out with all the courage - or make that lunacy - of Captain Oates. And, right enough, it may be some time until we see a full fixture programme again.

Of course, we've always played our national game at this time of the year, so what's the problem, they ask?

Let me tell you. Tradition? It's about as useful as a window box on a submarine.

The aforementioned explorer toddled off into the Antarctic night in an incredible gesture of self sacrifice aimed at keeping his mates alive.

But attempting to play football in this weather is suicide for no apparent reason. We are killing it as surely as taking a baseball bat to a seal pup.

Nero fiddled while Rome burned: a parliament fiddled its expenses while a nation went into financial meltdown. I hope they are passing their time more constructively behind the glass doors at Hampden while our game rolls over and dies.

Honestly. Every year, I promise myself to write a column about this in the middle of the summer because it is as relevant then as it is now. But my brain is so cold I can't remember if I did.

Clubs like Kilmarnock have had to scramble for indoor training facilities

Henry McLeish's review of Scottish football hasn't exactly triggered a revolution. I don't see him rolling up the steps of Hampden in a Jeep chomping on a cigar.

Three administrative bodies, three chief executives, two presidents and one chairman and all their merry men and women can't drag the game into line. May the good Lord preserve us.

Have you seen the weather out there? That's for curling, not curling free-kicks.

We're playing football - or at least scheduling games - when we shouldn't be and worse still NOT playing when we should be.

An August start to the season is about as sensible as an ejector seat on a helicopter when our clubs are forced earlier and earlier into European action.

In July, the pitches are pristine and you can watch the game without lumping on enough clothing to make you a doppelganger for the Michelin Man.

And, as Celtic will point out, you can have your stadium and pitch as match perfect as you like, but if the roads are not fit for purpose then Strathclyde's finest aren't having it on their patch.

This isn't the wrath of God that has hit Scotland this winter. It's weather. Particularly bad weather I concede, but just weather nevertheless.

Have you looked at a map of the planet. That wee dot way above the equator in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean just down a bit from where the Polar bears live is us.

Good grief, one chairman, John Yorkston of Dunfermline has even asked fans to take a shovel to East End Park to dig, not for victory but to find grass! And, while you're at it, don't forget your flask, survival suit, ice axe and crampons.

Meanwhile, as July dawns bright and fair and the grass is greener than Kermit the Frog, the district councils will have taken down the posts in the public parks and the Scottish Premier League will be in hibernation.

We are backside over breast and sometime soon someone will admit this is horribly, horribly wrong.

But I wouldn't hold your breath and, in any case, it's so cold we'll know if you do.

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