They may just be the two words which strike dread and loathing into the soul more than any others in the entire Oxford dictionary – Livingston away.

The very concept should be outlawed or, at the very least, this fixture ought to be hidden away like some dirty, forbidden secret. It should most certainly not be put up there on display for public consumption as if it’s one of Scottish football’s crown jewels.

Yesterday it was Celtic’s turn to visit West Lothian and test their skills on this wretched piece of plastic and even though they came away with a draw and a point which took them back on top of the Premiership pile, ultimately they were defeated by a surface that scars the face of the Scottish game.

In fact, it’s ugliness stopped them dead in their previously rampant tracks.

This is a side which had wracked up 23 goals in five top-flight games before hopping halfway across the M8. But all the exhilarating flair and the sheer fun of what they have been putting together lately disappeared in the first puff of pellets yesterday lunchtime. That, as a contest, it soon became a eye-bleeding test of endurance should have come as no great surprise. That’s Livingston away all over.

Not that Gary Holt or his players ought to feel remotely sorry or sheepish about it.

The truth of the matter is Holt had some heroic performers such as keeper Liam Kelly who made one or two miraculous saves and Keaghan Jacobs who tackled anything that moved in the middle of the park with such ferocity he might be in need of a skin graft during the international break.

All over this brute of a park, Holt had players willing to throw their bodies on the line and, in particular, the manager has a defence which is as stubborn as a mule.

They deserve huge, unqualified credit for all of the above and for the fact the point took them above Hibs and into seventh place in the table. What they are busy achieving in their first season back in the top flight is quickly moving beyond remarkable.

But - and it’s a big ‘but’ - they are doing it all on a playing surface which would get the game stopped.

Worse still, every now and then one of these abominations of a football match is broadcast around the world and when that happens, it should be a source of national embarrassment.

Yes, there is a fascination factor involved in watching a team like Celtic, or Rangers for that matter, knocked out of their comfort zone and thrown out there on to a pitch which is the modern-day equivalent of a red ash public park.

But it’s the same kind of fascination which comes with watching Tiger Woods shoot an 18 over par. It’s interesting perhaps but in a macabre, unedifying way.

It certainly isn’t entertainment and that’s a great pity because Scottish football’s recent renaissance has got so much going for it. We really ought to be telling the world to take a closer look at what’s going on here and demanding too that we are are paid properly for the product.

Doncaster has the chance to secure a huge TV deal

But how can the SPFL hope to be taken seriously by the TV companies when they are offering up Livingston away? At the Tony Macaroni Arena?

If Neil Doncaster can make Sky, BT Sport or anyone else for that matter cough up 30million quid for that then it’s not a bonus he deserves, it’s a jail sentence. He’ll have robbed them blind.

Doncaster is currently heading up the second round of discussions with the broadcasters and it would be a huge help to him if he could give them a proper inventory. Like more live games from the likes of Tynecastle, Easter Road, Pittodrie and, in particular, from inside Celtic Park and Ibrox.

If we are serious about selling Scottish football for a fairer price, then we must be prepared to sell the very best version of it. That’s not Livingston away and it’s not a trip to Hamilton either and yet that’s precisely where the cameras will be next time out, when Celtic return to action after the international break. On another god forsaken plastic pitch.

It was interesting to hear Brendan Rodgers resisting the temptation to lay into Livingston’s surface in the aftermath of the 0-0 draw. He mentioned it on more than one occasion and admitted too that his players struggle to play their passing game at full tilt on anything other than grass. But he stopped just short of blaming it for the two points which they left behind, even though he must have felt like it.

Yesterday was neither the time nor the place as his words would have been easily dismissed as those of a sore loser.

But Rodgers did have his say before a ball was kicked and the message he was getting out there on Friday, during his pre-match media conferences, is worthy of a more general, nationwide debate.

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Rodgers believes Scottish football’s image is cheapened by the presence of plastic pitches in the top flight and he’s absolutely spot on. He has called for financial assistance to be given to clubs as an incentive for ripping them up and replacing them with grass and that too seems like a sensible idea.

Rodgers went as far as to say that he has never once seen a decent game of football played on a synthetic surface and nothing happened at the weekend that will have changed his point of view.

This was certainly not a beauty contest. This was Scottish football with its ‘morning after’ face on.

This was Livingston away.

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