Football: Lang were frozen out

Dec 5 2012 by Kenny Smith, Rutherglen Reformer

Cambuslang Rangers were frozen out on Saturday - twice!

The Lang had been due to take on fellow promotion challengers Forth Wanderers at Somervell Park, but the game fell foul of the recent cold snap.

As a contingency plan to try and keep the players sharp and fit after their 3-0 win over Newmains the previous week, boss Alan Wardlaw had arranged a friendly with Clydebank at the 5G K-Park in East Kilbride - but it too was frozen off.

Alan said: “We had guessed by the weather that it wasn’t looking good on the Wednesday, so we spoke to Clydebank about arranging a friendly with them in East Kilbride as a back-up.

“But that fell foul of the weather too as the 3G pitch was frozen in parts, and the referee had no choice but to call it off, which was understandable but incredibly frustrating.

“We had a couple of trialists we really wanted to get a look at, but didn’t get the chance. They’re both players who could come in and have a real immediate impact on the side.”

Like most other junior sides in the country, Alan was left frustrated at the facilities which his side has.

He explained: “I just wish we had the finance to put in our own 3G or 5G pitch, as that’s the way forward, which would be used primarily by ourselves, but open to the rest of the local community too.

“But like everyone else, we sadly just don’t have the finance to do it.

“I’ve said it before, but there’s a real lack of good facilities around here for teams like ourselves. We had to stop using the pitch at Stonelaw as it was injuring our players because it was so solid - it was like playing on the street, and so many players were getting knocks.

“Now, we train in East Kilbride and Castlemilk, because we need a full-size pitch to practice on.

“If Stonelaw was upgraded, we’d be delighted to come back, but right not it’s just not a surface that’s condusive to the high-intensity training that we do - we don’t want to pick up niggling ankle injuries.”

This Saturday, Cambuslang Rangers have been given an away trip to Vale of Leven in Alexandria.

Alan said: “It’s really, really unlikely to get played, going by the forecast for the week again. It looks like it’s going to stay between -3 and -5 for the week, but will warm up towards 5 degrees on Saturday, but that might not be enough to thaw out the pitch. We’ll prepare as normal for the game, assuming it’s going to be on, but we realistically know there’s every chance it will be postponed.”

In recent seasons, this fixture has always been played towards the end of the campaign on a midweek evening, with a 6.30pm kick off, meaning the Lang have had a threadbare squad to choose from, to get down to Alexandria in time for kick off.