The reason Scotland ditched Oriam as 'health risk' factor behind Lesser Hampden switch revealed

John Carver has slammed the playing surface at Oriam as a "health risk" to the Scotland squad as he explained the reasoning behind their switch to Lesser Hampden.

Steve Clarke and his squad have been training next door to the national stadium as opposed to their usual base in the capital as they get ready for European Championship qualifiers with Cyprus and Spain in the coming week. They have trained at Oriam for the vast majority of Clarke's home games in charge but opted to switch to Queen's Park's home stadium for sessions in the build-up to their opening qualifiers for Euro 2024.

And Carver says it's because of the "safety hazard" with the surface at Oriam - revealing it would give way and put the players at risk. He said: "With all due respect to Oriam, it was a safety hazard in my eyes. It looked good on the eye, you guys were there quite often and you only seen us working in small areas. But for some reason, the surface would just give way, so for the guys playing on it, it was a health risk.

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"I'm surprised we didn't get any serious injuries from it, especially with the pace and the tempo that these guys were playing at and are playing at now. It was a huge concern.

"We were having to curtail the training sometimes. They're very competitive and we were having to say 'take it easy.' Certain sessions you did, like defending, were very very difficult."

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