Green Cards And Sin BIns Would Be Good Fot Football

I HAVE actually covered field hockey matches for newspapers. So, while I do not consider myself to be an expert on the game, I know what is going on. I certainly enjoyed watching the GB Women winning gold at the recent Olympics.

I can therefore say, those who are calling for the introduction of hockey-style (roughly the same system operates in ice hockey) penalty shoot-outs – where the taker has eight seconds in which to run-in and shoot, rather than the straight penalty flick from the spot – are talking through their hats.

The hockey/ice hockey penalty works, because the goal is so-small. In football, with its bigger goal, it would be too-easy to draw the keeper out, then lift the ball round him. And reasonably-skilled taker would have a huge advantage. Mind you, a lot of 0-0 penalty shoot-outs coming up in Scotland I would say!!

But, one thing I would like to see brought into football from hockey would be the green and yellow cards for foul play, also the use of sin bins – which also occur in ice hockey and rugby. In hockey green cards are flourished when a foul is sufficiently bad to halt an attack but the referee (actually an umpire in hockey) decides it was a case of bad timing or whatever, with no malice aforethought. The miscreant is then sent to the sin bin for two minutes.

A yellow card is issued for a worse foul, or, if the official decides there was malice aforethought, and this carries a longer term in the bin.

Now, imagine this in football. Fouls in which an attacker was taken-out would earn the tackler a green card and two minutes, but the cynical tackles, like jersey-pulling and the so-called “professional” foul, would be more-harshly punished. If this came into football, I could see a good many games descending into long periods of five-a-side.

I would also like to see a basketball-style totting-up procedure invoked, whereby the guys committing the fouls have them credited (if that's the right word) to the individual player. In basketball, five personal fouls and you are out of the game – some Scottish defenders wouldn't last to half time, which would make matches interesting.

“Soccer”, “Association Football”, “Fitba”, call it what you like, but, that form of football in which two, 11-a-side teams attempt over two 45-minute periods, to propel a round ball into goals at either end, is the most free-form version of the many codes of football played world-wide.

As such, it demands, I would suggest, the most-stringent refereeing standards, to allow the game's artists to flourish. Instead, the game has become the least-stringently-refereed. It is too-easy for those who are paid to stop the creators from creating – the “hammer-throwers” of popular legend, to prevail. If they were hammered by green, yellow and red cards and personal fouls tallies – football would be the better for it.

I COULD not see Celtic failing to qualify for the group stages of the Champions League, after their first-leg romp at Celtic Park. But, they had me sweating at half-time in Israel on Tuesday night. I felt, if Hapoel Beer-Sheva had scored in the first 15 minutes of the second half, things might have got a bit interesting, but, Celtic went through.

Mind you, the draw did them no favours. If there is such a thing as a “Group of Death” in this Scot season's CL, then, Celtic are in it. Right now, any position better than fourth is a win for the Hoops.

IN SPITE of my best intentions, I watched last night's opening episode of the new BBC Scotland series on “Scotland's Game”. Stupid title by the way, in world terms, Scotland's game is bowling – that is the one in which we excel and have, at any one time, a clutch of world-class stars.

Any way, Episode One was the same-old, same-old. The BBC's house band of football talking heads: Cosgrove, Spiers and MacDonald, Traynor, McPherson and English. Where, however were the intellectuals – Pat Nevin, Michael Stewart etc?

It was, as ever, mainly about the Bigot Brothers, superficial and crap – a wee bit like Scottish Fitba.

BBC Scotland's Scottish football coverage adheres strictly to the “Liberty Valance Rule” - “If the truth belies the legend – print the legend”.