One of the alleged benefits of the internet is, it offers everyone the opportunity to comment immediately on matters in the public domain. Once upon a time, if the average member of the public felt sufficiently moved by a comment made on the radio or television, they could write a letter to the Editor of the publication involved, or to the broadcasting medium, and, given good luck in the lottery which was the selection process, see their views published or broadcast.
Of course, back then, there was an element of choice, if your view as "Disgusted of Dunblane" did not concur with that of the journalist sifting through the responses to decide which comments to publish or broadcast, then, tough luck, your views remained your own.
With the internet, however, anyone and everyone can post their views and, in all but a few cases where moderation takes place, see these views published. This has led to the phenomenon known as "clickbait", whereby, say a newspaper's website, deliberately encourages controversial opinions, to encouraged outraged responses, and enable the said newspaper to claim: "Our website has had X-million "hits" in the past six months, or whatever".
One guaranteed means of generating "hits" is used by Scotland's four biggest newspaper websites, those of the Sun and Daily Record, the Herald and Scotsman. This is, to put Celtic or Rangers stories in a prominent position, secure in the knowledge - the two tribes will bite and bite big.
This has led the that other phenomenon of the internet in Scotland, rampant whitabootery, whereby incidents and grievances gong back to 1690 are raised and rehashed by two sides, neither of which is listening, merely demonstrating their bigotry and stupidity.
Right now, this aspect of 21st century Scottish life is all too evident in the fall-out over the Livingston players' repeated fouling of Nathan Oduwa at Ibrox on Tuesday night.
Quite how Andrew Dallas allowed Livvi to finish the game with their full 11-man compliment, I will never know. I reckon his father, who for all the accusations of pro-Rangers bias and his part in the so-called "Masonic conspiracy" at the heart of Scottish refereeing, was an excellent referee, would surely have had his red card out at least once and perhaps twice, in response to some of the Livingston challenges.
Young Dallas did himself no favours.
Now, cutting through all the bullshit about the actions of John Greig, Graeme Souness, Roy Aitken or Bobo Balde which have been aired over the internet since the game, can we look calmly at what I see as the main talking point.
This is, football's attitude to bad challenges. Yes, the beautiful game is the most free-form of the many codes of football played on this planet. Referees are encouraged, as far as possible to: "Let the game flow". This means, occasionally, poor challenges are let go, or, are not punished as rigorously as they perhaps should be.
Today's game is a lot faster, a game for athletes, to an extent we never saw, 40, 50 or 60 years ago, unfortunately, here in the United Kingdom, we still allow the sort of challenges which, back in the day, were none too serious, but which are today, when perpetrated against the quicker players in the modern game, potentially career-ending.
We will never end badly mistimed challenges, but, I feel we could get rid of some of the poor fouls, such as one or two committed on Oduwa on Tuesday night, if football adopted one or two ideas from other sports.
Let's start with what I think is the most-obvious, Rugby Union's yellow card protocol. With this, if a player is yellow-carded, he goes off for ten minutes in the sin bin. During this period, it is very rare for the team with the one-man advantage not to score once or twice, hence, in a game where the opportunity to really hurt an opponent, and where the Laws as regards certain aspects of play are so complex one almost needs to be a lawyer to understand them, you don't see many yellow cards.
I guarantee, if football introduced the ten-minute rule, it would be cleaned-up within a season - clubs simply could not risk picking up three, four or more yellow cards per game.
Or, if ten-minutes is too-long a spell to go short-handed, why not try ice hockey's system of major and minor penalties. Take things such as jersey-pulling, kicking the ball away and so on, which attract yellow cards today; ten minutes in the sin bin for such offences might be over-kill, som count these as minor crimes and have maybe three or five minutes in the bin as punishment, leaving the ten-minute sanction for poor tackles, short of the potential leg-breakers, which should continue to be red-card offences.
I got the distinct impression, watching the way the Livvi players seemed to take it in turns to kick Oduwa on Tuesday night, they had been told to, in that quaint old Scottish phrase: "rummel him up". Well an idea from basketball would, I believe, soon sort this idea out.
In that game, which is of course non-contact, each player is allowed four fouls, on commiting a fifth, he is out of the game. OK, he can be replaced, but, the guy with five fouls takes no further part. Also, if a team commits more than a certain number of fouls, seven I think, thereafter, if they concede a defensive foul, anywhere on the court, the opposition gets a free throw - basketball's equivalent of a penalty.
Now, bring these ideas into football and we would soon be rid of that Scottish football phenomenon: "the hammer throwers". Clubs simply could not afford to carry guys who were more brawn than brain. Thus, entertainers such as Nathan Oduwa might be allowed to flourish in our game.
And, while I am at it, can I say again: bring in another Rugby Union law - the ten-metre back award for not immediately accepting the referee's decision and retiring backwards. If that came in, it would soon do away with the scenes of a knot of players surrounding the officials, arguing and pushing and pulling.
Let's clean-up football, now.
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