Gavin Skelton can’t wait to get back playing

Dec 23 2010 by Andrew McGilvray, Hamilton Advertiser

HAMILTON midfielder Gavin Skelton is praying that Sunday’s clash against Dundee United beats the cold snap – because he’s desperate for a game.

Accies have climbed off the bottom of the SPL and above Aberdeen on goal difference and the former Kilmarnock star hopes three points from the Boxing Day clash at Tannadice can put Hamilton in a great position as they welcome the Dons on Wednesday afternoon.

But Skelton (29) is just eager to get back into competitive action as Accies haven’t played now since drawing 0-0 at home to St Mirren on November 27.

Carlisle-born Skelton said: “From a personal point of view and for the team, it would be massive if the Dundee United game was on. We want to get back into it – we haven’t played but got off the bottom of the table and then we’ve got Aberdeen coming up at our place on Wednesday. If their game is on, we want ours to be on to match them.

“Dundee United haven’t played for a long time - longer than us - so we’d love to go up there and win because we’re looking for points going into the Aberdeen game.”

With games against St Johnstone and Celtic to re-arrange and a New Douglas Park clash against Hibs now twice postponed, a fixtures backlog could be on the cards but that doesn’t faze Skelton.

He said: “I’d quite like it if we had a hectic week. I know it’s easy to say but you’re sick of training for no game and it’s hard.

“You’re ready to play even if it’s two, three or four games a week because that’s what you’d rather do.

“At the moment, it’s more than frustrating, whether it’s supporters, players, coaches or anyone involved in the game. We’re all looking at the weather forecast a couple of days ahead and it just messes people up, doesn’t it?

“What people tend to forget, though, is this is our job so there’s nobody more frustrated than us. By Saturday, that will have been four weeks without a game, so we’re just looking forward to getting back playing.

“That’s what we have to keep training towards and keep preparing, even if we know it’s likely to be off. That’s the hard part, because you get yourself built up again and then it’s called off so it’s kind of sickening. I think everyone’s just hacked off now.

“At this moment in time, I don’t think having a hectic schedule would be a problem. I think in England they’re probably playing Saturday-Tuesday a lot more often and it might take a bit of getting used to, but that’s what you’ve got a squad for and you might as well use it.”

Although the current situation seems to a few observers to be a perfect advert for a winter shutdown, Skelton isn’t so sure it’s a good idea.

“You’d probably normally take it in January, but if we had done that we’d be looking at eight weeks without a game,” he explained.

“Sometimes you get snow in February so it could be even longer. I can see why you’d do it, and if you could guarantee that it would only be that period then it would make perfect sense and everyone would just go on holiday.

“But if the break was in January then we could be two months without a game and that would effectively split the season into two. That would be even more frustrating and you’d need to do another pre-season, which would be worse!”

Skelton added: “We’re ticking over as best we can at the moment. We’re playing training games among ourselves but it’s not the same. Having said that, in years gone past, we might have had nowhere to train and had to use sports halls and places like that, so luckily we’ve got a full-sized astroturf pitch at the Ravenscraig Regional Sports Facility in Motherwell, and we’ve been training really hard there.

“Although it’s not ideal to train on astroturf all the time we’re quite fortunate now to have the facilities to be able to do a proper training session.”