Inverness Caledonian Thistle manager Billy Dodds has been speaking about his side’s upcoming Scottish Cup final against Celtic.
The Hampden showpiece is still four-and-a-half weeks away, but it has already had its fair share of drama.
Yesterday it was announced that the game would kick-off at 5:30pm rather than 3pm with Celtic unhappy at the decision.
The reason for the switch is believed to be the need for broadcasters to avoid a clash with the FA Cup final between Manchester City and Manchester United.
Inverness boss Dodds has echoed the general sense of disappointment today while speaking to STV.
“It’s not ideal,” he said. “I don’t think we should ever move our showpiece final to suit anybody. But I can only imagine it’s for TV rights or something and we don’t want to clash.
“It’s not ideal for me. But it is what it is and I’m just glad we’re there, but I would rather, like everybody else, 3pm on a Saturday should be when a showpiece final is played, but it’s not to be.
“And it’s the ones who are travelling the furthest, Celtic fans will be coming over from Ireland, we are coming down from Inverness.
“It’s a shame on them, it really is because they’ve got a long way to travel and then they’re getting moved about with the kick off and some simply just won’t be able to get there.”
The harsh treatment of Inverness fans is likely to be mentioned a lot between now and the game.
While it is unquestionably a tough situation for them, the mainstream media shouldn’t forget that a similar scenario applies to thousands of Celtic supporters as well.
It’s nice to hear Dodds reference them in his answer. It’s an important point that shouldn’t be forgotten.
Celtic won’t just have fans coming over from Ireland either. Supporters will make their way from remote parts of Scotland, England and further afield.
Let’s hope the change of kick-off time doesn’t put too many of them off.
In other news, Celtic will pay tribute to Jimmy Johnstone during the warm-up at Tynecastle on Sunday
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