Is It Me?

IS IT ME? Sir Terry Wogan, England's favourite Irishman used to ask that rhetorical question every morning on his BBC Radio 2 show - usually when some PC "talking head" was reported as coming up with a statement so blindingly-crass and wrong as to defy parody.

Now I ask it in respect of Sunday's League Cup Final at Hampden.

Is it me, or does anyone else think maybe keeping little Lennie as far away as was possible from the technical area, without banishing him entirely from the posh seats, helped make the important part of the National Stadium arena more like a football area and less like a war zone?

Maybe the SFA should banish the Celtic boss permanently to the stand - on police advice and in the interests of good order.

While Lennie was to a certain extent emasculated by his touchline ban - I cannot help thinking "Walter" let himself down somewhat with his wee moan about Craig Thomson's decision to rescind the first half penalty he had already given Rangers. The ref's second thought was better than his first and fair play to him for having the balls to think again.

There has been much talk over the past year or so about the use of TV technology in sorting out anomalies such as Frank Lampard's goal that wasn't given in the World Cup, or the Hand of Henry. As I've said before, the use of TMOs (Television Match Officials) is simple to introduce in stop-start sports such as cricket, tennis, rugby and American Football - a lot harder in football.

For example, within a couple of seconds of Lampard's shot spinning back into the German goalkeeper's arms, Germany were across the half-way line on a counter-attack: suppose they had managed to "score" before play was halted; cue World War III.

The extra officials introduced in the European games will, I suspect, be the road down which the game goes. They are not ideal, they still get the odd one wrong, but their input could be more-immediate than referal to a TV official somewhere else in the ground.

But, for contentious penalties such as Sunday's, where the game has stopped in any case - then referral to a TMO would work.

Sunday's other contentious issue was the late red card for Celtic's Honduran chappie - again perfectly justified. If Weiss had got away from him, regardless of the frantically back-tracking other Celtic players, he would have had a clear goal-scoring opportunity. This was denied him, so, red card.

I don't hold with this: "Aye well, it was in the 120th minute, he (Thomson) could maybe have let it go. Here I refer you to the wise words of Mr Thomas Wharton, late referee of the parish of Clarkston - during a discussion of a penalty he had awarded in an Inter-League game between the English and Scottish Leagues, at Ibrox.

English League captain Bobby Robson: "Come on ref, you don't give penalties in matches like this".

Wharton: "Mr Robson, when I see a penalty - I give it".

Clearly the Wharton legacy lives on.

That said, Wharton did give the spot kick after Davie Wilson of Rangers went down in the box - so maybe Thomson hasn't exactly followed the great "Tiny's" example.

Finally, with the top Scottish football writers sunning themselves, sorry, covering the national team's sojourn in La Manga, this would surely be a good week for any officials left back home in Scotland to release any bad news/possibly contentious stories they've been keeping out of the public domain.