Bobby Madden believes Dundee's well-documented recent pitch troubles could be the sign of years of negligence.
The retired former Scottish FA referee has weighed in on the chaos that's surrounded the Dens Park surface causing Dundee's home Premiership clash with Rangers to be postponed twice in a month.
Dundee's inability to fulfil the fixture has meant the league split schedule will be delayed, plus it's taken Rangers chance to leapfrog Celtic at the table summit out of their own hands for now.
Madden understands the frustration, however, he revealed officials have historically had issues with potential call-offs and questioned the ground staffs role in proceedings.
READ MORE: Aberdeen-linked Jimmy Thelin dubbed 'outstanding' by rival manager
Speaking on the BBC Sportsound panel, he said: "Just one thing, you mention the playing surface at Dundee. This is definitely not a new problem. I had challenges with that area of the pitch 10 yards from the away dugout, six, seven years ago, and it's always been a problem, and always been a concern for any match official when there's been heavy rain.
"So, it's not a new issue. The only other thing I would mention is it not the case the Dundee ground staff have left the club this year, so I don't know what they've done. I'm sure in February the situation there was a change."
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here