Hamilton v Celtic: Another Refereeing Stramash

Jings, crivvens, help ma boab. Oor Wullie's been at it again.

Collum that is.

Scotland's most famous religious education teacher inspired yet another biblical fury in Neil Lennon at New Douglas Park last night.

Three red cards, one penalty awarded and another turned down, an offside goal allowed for Hamilton, a goal for Celtic disallowed. This was a 1-1 draw with attitude.

Big calls all night. Sympathy with the referee for the red cards for James Forrest and Jim McCallister. Watching the highlights of the game made me wince when I saw the challenges going in. Late challenges both. The ref only gets one look and I think Collum got both calls right.

I've seen a lot of these sliding, late challenges lately. Seems to me players are asking for trouble.

And, yes, sometimes players do "get away with it." Doesn't make it right.

Martin Canning was offside for Hamilton's goal and his run in front of Fraser Foster meant he was interfering with play. Collum could probably not tell that from his position and his assistant seemed to be standing on the wrong side of the line of players in the box rather than in line with them. Maybe this is the norm for free kicks but it meant his view of Canning was impeded.

The penalty Celtic got was right and the red card that followed for Simon Mensing was justified. Celtic's disallowed goal was the right call by the assistant, the ball going out of play from the corner. On that occasion the assistant was in line with the goal line, perfectly placed to see the ball.

Which leaves us with two things to ponder. Should Celtic have had another penalty? I know not, as I've not seen it and it is not included on the BBC website package.

The second issue: Hamilton are bottom of the league and haven't won at home all season, Celtic are top of the league and were looking to open up a seven point gap on Rangers. Collum had a difficult evening. But Celtic's continual struggles in games like this point to problems far closer to home than a concerted campaign of action against them. Neil Lennon is seeing refereeing incompetence every week? Yes he is, we all are, whoever we manage, play for or support. But he's also seeing incompetence from his team far too often. And that buck stops with him, nobody else.

> Celtic are to appeal the James Forrest red card. More appeals than Blue Peter.

We'll Meet Again

Hibs v Celtic on Saturday. Fourth official: Mr William Collum. Maybe it will give him and Neil Lennon a chance to put their heads together and sort out their differences. Or, you know, knock each other out.

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The SPL: Twelve Does Not Become Ten. For Now

“Scottish Premier League officials have been forced into a tactical retreat in their campaign to cut the number of clubs in the top flight from 12 to ten. That reduction was due to be the subject of a vote at a meeting of SPL clubs next Monday, but the vote has now been postponed in the face of mounting opposition.”

It seems that the SPL, self declared saviours of the Scottish game, can’t even push through a gerrymandered vote on a ten team league.

Despite assurances from SPL chief executive and chairman, Neil Doncaster and Ralph Topping, that ten teams was the only way to save the game the clubs have so far proved themselves unwilling to be saved.

Dundee United had already voiced their reservations while Hearts have seemed consistently unmoved by the plans. Inverness, Motherwell and Kilmarnock were also uncertain.

Now it seems that St Mirren and Motherwell have joined the list of doubters. All the more remarkable when we remember that they were both represented on the SPL working group that formulated the ten team plan in the first place.

That would appear to leave five teams in favour or undeclared with Hamilton joining the other four members of the working group: Aberdeen, Celtic, Hibs and Rangers. It’s those four clubs, or their representatives, that we must now presume to be the movers and shakers in one of the most universally unpopular ideas to hit Scottish football for years.

The ten team SPL isn’t dead. But nor is it as close as Topping and Doncaster had hoped.

Let’s not celebrate this too much. There has been no, or at least not a very big, victory for fan power. Rather the SPL have displayed the kind of incompetence and cack handedness that we tend to expect from our football administrators.

There does seem some hope though that not all the chairmen were taken in by a plan that, from this distance, seemed flimsy and so full of supposition as to be no more than a shot in the dark.

Our problems remain and a solution still needs to be found. The ten team SPL will be back. For now it’s up to someone to come up with a more attractive plan. Our breath is bated.

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Referee!

When does a conspiracy theory eat itself?

Consider this: An unnamed source at Celtic accuses SPL referees of incompetence (at best) in their handling of the club's matches this season. Some Celtic supporters are already convinced they are conspired against by the authorities and see this as legitimising those claims.

When the BBC report both the complaint and the SFA's denials, some Celtic supporters claim that they are victims of a BBC-SFA conspiracy to undermine the club before Sunday's Old Firm clash.

Thus, I think, does a conspiracy theory become the victim of a conspiracy theory. Seriously, all this is making Richard Nixon look like one of the least paranoid, sane men ever to hold public office.

The distant rumbling that they can hear at Celtic Park is the sound of every non-Old Firm supporter in the land chuckling at Celtic's apparent distress.

Celtic's timing has been bad, possibly fuelled by antagonism between reffing supremo Hugh Dallas and whoever Celtic dispatched to raise their concerns. By allowing someone to go off the record the week before such a big game they've made themselves look petty and desperate.

If the BBC had got hold of the story then Celtic could have said: "We are always keen to discuss issues with the SFA but would prefer to keep those discussions private."

Doesn't kill the story but it would have kept Celtic above the fray, at least in the febrile atmosphere of the build-up to an Old Firm match. Even after the story broke they could have distanced themselves from it, has John Reid never rubbished the claims of an unnamed source before?

It's all a bit grubby, tagging the Robbie Keane offside complaints on at the end of the litany of moans certainly convinced this observer that this was a cack handed attempt to pressurise the officials on Sunday.

Like everyone else I've seen some shocking displays by referees this season (an opinion apparently shared by Dallas himself) and some decent ones. But Celtic have just added pressure on referees, pressure that is likely to diminish quality rather than enhance it, likely to harm any hopes of real accountability.

But then I've also seen some shocking displays from Celtic this season and I'm far more inclined to blame that for their league standing than refereeing standards.

That unnamed Celtic source has managed to shift the focus from an underperforming side as they face a must win game. But even Deepthroat himself will only consider that a job well done if the players actually get a result on Sunday.

If not it looks like sour grapes. Mr Mowbray, it's over to you...

Blowing the whistle

Apparently, during his time managing in England, Jim Gannon refused to talk to Sky Sports for a number of months. Not in an Alex Ferguson, Harry Redknapp type bust up. No, Jim wouldn't talk because he got a bad picture from his satellite dish at home.

An amusing anecdote but also a sign that Mr Gannon is not above taking an unconventional approach or taking on the big boys.

So perhaps it's no surprise that it's the Motherwell manager who is the unofficial shop steward as certain managers go loco over the issue of poor referees in the SPL.

Some managers have refused to get involved. Others have backed Gannon. Craig Levein, and can anyone remember a time when he wasn't at war with the authorities, has jumped on board. So has Csaba Lazlo, although you suspect that much like Fergie calling the ref a fat knacker this is a good way to distract attention from the Tynecastle malaise.

Perhaps the most pertinent comment came from Gus McPherson. Gus is, of course, an increasingly likeable arch pragmatist and his response was as to the point as you might expect. Referees, he surmised, are no worse than last year.

And it's Gus that's probably hit the nail on the head. As Jim McLean pointed out in Friday's Daily Record, the role of the referee is now analysed like never before. Tiny Wharton was safe in the knowledge that his every decision would immediately be scrutinized by such footballing behemoths as Craig Burley.

Burley's black and white opinions of every foul, offside and booking are aided by instant replays from every angle. Even then Craig is wrong as often as he is right. Which might suggest that we are all guilty of imperfection and error and we can expect our referee's to display human frailties on occasion.

Football is also now a business. Big money is involved and the pressures are great. In an age when relegation brings with it the threat of bankruptcy each decision has major ramifications.

There, if I may widen the scope of my pontification, a societal change at play as well. Everybody now expects everything to be perfect and we are too willing to slip into the role of hard done by, helpless victim when things don't go our way. Ireland's mammoth session of greeting over Thierry Henry's gifted left hand was proof positive of that.

For all these changes though not much has changed. Supporter's of teams outside the Old Firm have always claimed a ref would develop acute myopia whenever a blue or hooped shirt transgressed. Rangers and Celtic supporter's have always claimed that certain referees are of certain religions. And every fan in the land has been united by the apparently certain knowledge that all referees are of questionable parentage.

What seems to be different this time is the extent to which Gannon and others are prepared to unleash their scorn. Unprecedented. So vitriolic that the referee's are even threatening to strike.

They're are good referee's and there are some who are not so good. And the very best referee's will still sometimes get it wrong. In much the same as there are good players, bad players and good managers, bad managers.

I don't agree with Gannon and his cohorts. Things aren't as bad as they are making out. And, utlimately, I think they're doing the game a disservice.

I would like changes. I'd like the appeals procedure to be quicker, clearer and more transparent. I'd like the referee's to face the press after a game and provide the rationale for certain decisions. And I would like more responsibility handed back to to the men in the middle. We have to trust them to apply common sense to the unique circumstances of every game.

All of these changes rely on a wind of change blowing through the corridors of power at the SFA. This I think gets to the heart of the matter. This public row is because managers are frustrated at the SFA, the refusal to change, the refusal to even discuss. Many of our problems can be traced back to the fact that it is the SFA, not referees, who are not up to the job.

In the short term, of course, we risk referees being scared to do their jobs as they see fit. In that sense each Gannon rant is self defeating. In the longer term it's going to be harder to persuade people that being a ref is a viable option. The talent pool will get ever shallower.

Whatever Jim Gannon is trying to achieve, he's doing the game no favours going about it this way.

Reffing Hell!

The SPL kick off may be delayed by a referee's strike.

For the love of God, how much more ridicule can football in this country survive?

Bad enough that this fine band of men make so many ludicrous decisions. Bad enough that you are unable to question them. Bad enough that some clown thought it would be a good idea to have them sponsored by Specsaver.

Now we're being held to ransom as the men in the middle demand something approaching a 74 percent pay rise. 74 percent. Robert Mugabe would cringe at that level of inflation.

They have claimed they want to be paid a similar wage to countrparts in similar European leagues.

Quick question: other than the distortion of the wages paid in Glasgow does the SPL pay comparative wages to players?

First reaction - tell them to go whistle. Ship in some referee's from elsewhere and see if the standard improves.

Second reaction - we need, unfortunately, to do a deal. If the league doesn't kick off at 12.30 on Saturday then what little credibilty we do have is going to be shattered.

Can we afford to let that happen?