Motherwell v St Mirren game called off after flooding at Fir Park

Motherwell’s Premiership match against St Mirren on Saturday has been called off after a pipe at the stadium burst in the frozen conditions.

A brief statement from the club on Friday morning read: “Our match with St Mirren has been cancelled due to extensive stadium damage and flooding caused by recent cold weather.”

The sides were scheduled to meet in their first game back after the World Cup break but the fixture will now need to be re-arranged with Fir Park unable to host the game.

Sub-zero temperatures have caused disruption across the country in the last week and Motherwell chief executive Alan Burrows had tweeted that he had never seen as much ice outside the ground, adding that the temperature at Fir Park was -12C.

Those conditions have now meant that both clubs will have to wait until Christmas Eve for their return to competitive action.

Our match with St Mirren has been cancelled due to extensive stadium damage and flooding caused by recent cold weather.
— Motherwell FC (@MotherwellFC) December 16, 2022

Other fixtures are expected to be affected by the weather and Dundee’s home match against Cove Rangers has now been.

The club said that they had asked the SPFL for an early pitch inspection so that the decision could be made on Friday but the league told them to wait until Saturday morning. The decision was then revisited and the match postponed.

In a statement on the club website, Dundee said: “Despite our undersoil heating being on since Monday, the freezing conditions and last night’s heavy snowfall have meant that the pitch is now in a state that would put players’ safety at risk.

“Furthermore, the decision has already had to be made by the club that due to frozen pipes some stands would have to remain closed for tomorrow’s fixture if it went ahead.

“Our experienced ground staff have been hard at work this week but unfortunately, the unprecedented cold weather has meant that the surrounding areas inside and outside the stadium are also dangerous.

“We, therefore, requested an early pitch inspection to give supporters as much notice as possible as it’s our belief that this fixture will not go ahead. However, regrettably, the SPFL has decided to delay an inspection until tomorrow morning so we cannot give spectators as early a decision as we would have wished.

“We shall confirm the position with this fixture tomorrow morning.”