The late postponement of St Johnstone’s SPL match against Rangers was accepted by both managers but neither saw the call-off coming. One area of the pitch at McDiarmid Park was still frozen solid only an hour before kick-off, prompting referee Mike Tumilty to call off the game following a pitch inspection.

"I was here an hour and a half before and I had to consider the players' safety,” said Tumilty. “It's as simple as that. There is no way the pitch is playable."

Rangers manager Walter Smith said he had taken his players to Perth the night before the match and was surprised he had not been told the match was in jeopardy. However, he revealed that after the Rangers coaching staff had seen the playing surface they agreed that going ahead with the game would be dangerous.

"The area of the pitch which was affected apparently doesn't get the sunlight and it was just the 25-yard area around the penalty box that was the problem as the rest of the pitch was fine,” Smith said. “We had absolutely no indication there was any problem.

"We came to play the game and the first I knew about it was when I was walking about the pitch and was then told there was a section of the surface which was dangerous. It is dangerous and the referee's decision is the correct one.

"It was Alistair who alerted me to it as he was walking about the section which was frozen so from our own point of view it's really disappointing that the game is off. We had stayed in a hotel in Dunkeld and it is a concern that we had no inclination that the game was going to be called off or even that it was in any kind of danger."

Derek McInnes expressed his surprise at the state of the pitch and insisted that the club had done everything they could to get the game on. The St Johnstone manager was in agreement with Smith that the referee made the correct decision though but said that if the match had been played at 3pm instead of being an early kcik-off then there would have been no problem.

"It's a total shock and I wasn't expecting this at all. I arrived at 9am this morning and it was first brought to my attention how hard the 18-yard box was,” he explained

"Even then the indications were that the pitch would be fine by the time the referee arrived. It had improved slightly but not anywhere near ready to play on.

“If the game was due to go ahead at 3pm then I believe it would have made it. Even the referee alluded to that. It's just unfortunate we don't have that time as a decision had to be made.

"The undersoil heating has been on since Monday, it had to be on for the Hibs game. It's not as though we have been caught out as the heating has been kept on. The revenue is too important to this club not to do everything to get the game on but we've been unable to get it on.”

A date for the rearranged game has yet to be agreed but Smith was reluctant to ask for the match to be scheduled for the coming midweek as his side face Celtic in a crucial league match next Sunday.

"There's not a fixture pile-up as such but it does give us some awkward decisions to make with regard to when to play this game,” he said.

"We were looking forward to a clear week going into the Old Firm game so I would still want that.

"The club will make a comment on the situation regarding the fans so I'm not going to comment on that."