Hamilton Academical’s Scottish Challenge Cup tie against Coleraine is set for a late kick-off after the teams’ flight to Northern Ireland was delayed.
Accies were at Edinburgh Airport on Saturday morning to fly out to Northern Ireland ahead of the match against their NIFL Premiership opposition at The Showgrounds.
The club tweeted that they were facing delays and that making the ground in time for the scheduled 3pm kick-off was unlikely.
After discussions with Coleraine and the SPFL, who organise the competition, the club has said that they are hoping to be at the ground in time for a 3.45pm kick-off. The club apologised to fans, many of whom are already in Northern Ireland for the match.
Some fans were unhappy with the club, and took to social media to suggest that the team should have travelled out a day before the game.
Craig Rankin tweeted: “It’s been caused by you flying the day of the game”, while Gavin Baxter highlighted that some fans’ return journey meant they would not be able to stay for all of the delayed game.
“Who ever decided to fly this morning has made a huge error,” he tweeted. “Fans paying hard earned money and will miss end of game.”
Shane Keen said: “It’s your fault stop spinning the blame on someone else. Fans travelled to this spending their hard earned money and now most of us will miss the second half.”
David Gribbin added: “Hope the team are not out on a jolly tonight, when they could have been over last night, well rested and prepared for the game today. Hope we learn from this.”
The Challenge Cup is a knock-out tournament organised by the SPFL for clubs outside the Premiership. Since 2016-17 teams from outwith Scotland have been invited to compete, with representatives from Wales, the English National League, the NIFL Premiership and League of Ireland participating.
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