Another Domino Falls

I HAVE written before on these pages - a car crash is never caused by one single thing, rather, a series of small, sometimes seemingly unconnected events come together and - bang - cue pain, grief and disaster.

I reckon the same scenario is currently unfolding in Scottish football; I don't know where it will end,but, things are not looking good for our national game. Leaving aside if we can for a moment the continuing unfolding drama down Edmiston Drive, let's look at another facet of the game, our referees.

The men in black have never been the most-popular guys in the game, but, even if you think of them as "a necessary evil", the inconvenient truth is - we cannot have football without them. Even in the very early Victorian days, when "soccer" was played by middle-class gentlemen, reared from childhood in the public ethos of: "play up and play the game", umpires were deemed necessary, given the failure of the respective team captains to agree on what was or was not unfair play. Somebody has to stand in judgement of competing sides - no referees, no game, it is that obvious.

Received wisdom in Scotland may hold that our referees have long been, to a man, members of the Brotherhood of Freemasons and that a certain Glasgow side, wearing blue strips, have for over a century been receiving favoured treatment at the hands of the math officials - but few outwith the "Celtic Family" now subscribe to that theory. To those of us whose allegiance is to one of the non-Old Firm clubs, there have always been two clubs who get all the breaks from the men in the middle.

Received wisdom in Scotland also holds that our referees are crap. Again, this is nonsense. In my six decades of covering sport I have seen some quite brilliant refereeing decisions, some good ones and a few which have been so-bad as to make me cringe for the poor guy who made them. But, I can safely say, whether I have been watching football, rugby, hockey, ice hockey, basketball, volleyball or any of the other team games I have covered in my lengthy career, Scottish referees are not the worst.

Indeed, when I used to cover top-flight British League basketball, I always felt those few Scottish officials good enough to officiate at that level were generally better than their English counter-parts. Right now, there are no Scottish rugby referees operating at the absolute top level - covering the Six Nations or operating at the Rugby World Cup - but, while I have seen some howlers this season in Scottish club games, the guys in the middle up here are every bit as good as the so-called top men doing the really big, televised games.

But, one of the reasons for the lack of Scots officials at the very top is a lack of political clout. In refereeing, as in most areas of life, it's as much a case of who you know as what you know when it comes to the big jobs.

Apparently this is one of the unspoken, under-lying reasons for Charlie Richmond's decision this week to walk away from refereeing. Charlie, in his valedictory statement spoke of his favouritism and his refusal to sook-up to the men making the appointments.

To some, Charlie was seen as one of Hugh Dallas's boys - his career flourished under the now sacked Dallas, who, for all he was driven out of Hampden by a combination of his own goal via his e-mails and what most of us see as a vindictive campaign by the "Celtic Family", remains one of the most-influential members of the world-wide refereeing community and a member of UEFA's elite refereeing committee.

Celtic and their apologists may not like Dallas, but he is still seen as one of the top men by UEFA and FIFA.

I know Charlie Richmond quite well. He is as honest as the day is long and, as an Auchinleck man, he has a mind of his own, he fears nobody, cow-tows to nobody and calls it as he sees it.

Of course, being brought-up under "Auchnleck rules" - basically: "If there's nae bluid and his leg wisnae broken, it wisnae a foul", his interpretation of what was or wasn't a foul was always going to bring him into conflict with those within the game's corridors of power who seemingly want to make football a non-contact sport.

But, for all that, Charlie was one of the good guys and his decision to walk away is yet another small victory for those who want the game run their way and who brook no deviation from what they see as the true path.

I happen to think Charlie has a point. Dark forces are at work in our game and Charlie Richmond walking away is yet another domino falling in a pattern which could yet see Scottish football in extremely deep doo-dah, very soon.

Be afraid.