I MAY have mentioned before, but, one of my friends is a retired former Strathclyde Polis High Heid Yin - one-time Match Commander at Ibrox - and yes, he is a Rangers supporter (if not a Mason).
This morning, he brought-up the controversial matter of Andy Halliday's second yellow card and consequential red card, at Cappielow, on Monday night. First up, only the most-bitter member of the Celtic Family could fail to see, this was, by any measure, a very soft yellow/red combination incident. I don't know what it was all about, maybe the referee's assistant who brought Halliday's gesture towards the Morton fans was keen to get himself into the papers and on TV, but, in truth it was something about, if not nothing, very little.
I remember Barry Cook as a young schoolboy player with Renfrew High School; a clever boy I thought then - that's a view I have no reason to change. So, why did he go with the second yellow and consequential red? Might I suggest, since he is still on the way up in refereeing, perhaps fear of the assessor in the stand kicked-in and he opted to follow direction, rather than using his own initiative and maybe calling Halliday over and reading him the Riot Act.
"Listen you numpty - you're already on a yellow, FFS behave yourself or - you're off", the whole conversation emphasised with over-obvious gestures to emphasise - the ref is laying down the Law. That might have sufficed.
However, there is, I believe, a more-serious side to cases such as this. That side is, quite frankly football has a severe image problem inasmuch as the leeway it allows the players in terms of personal behaviour.
For instance, this issue of an automatic booking for players who take off their shirts in celebration of a goal. This protocol might seem a bit draconian, but, it was brought-in for good reason, when the "fashion" for taking-off strips first surfaced, one or two potenital flash-points arose, with players wearing undershirts showing controversial messages, some of which were clearly designed to annoy opposing fans.
So, rather than treating each case on its merits, football's authorities decided you take your shirt off, you get booked. Fair enough, this has been enshrined in football law for some years now - so, why the Hell are players still doing it?
If they are so-stupid that they keep doing this, well, it's surely up to the clubs to lay-down the Law and tell them: "You get booked for this, you get fined". I reckon, if the shirt-removers were hit and hit hard in the wallet, they would soon stop being so stupid.
A wee aside here. Last month I heard a current Glasgow Warriors Scottish rugby internationalist deliver an after-dinner speech. During this he revealed the behaviour rules under which he has to operate. With Warriors, if you get a yellow or red card - you automatically are dropped from the next game. Also, if the Warriors are defending and you go for an interception, and do not make it - you're dropped for the next game.
Now, in Rugby, if you pick-up a yellow card, you go into the "sin bin" for ten minutes and, records show, on average, a side asked to play a man down for ten minutes leaks ten points in that time. That's the equivalent of two goals, by the way.
Why don't the football authorities try this for a season? Now, I know the collisions, even the normal ones, in rugby tend to be a bit harder than the collisions in football, but, if only in terms of player welfare, if we clamped down on "over-zealous" challenges with sin-binning, it might make for a better game.
Similarly, if sin-binning was brought in for "professional" fouls - deliberate hand-ball and so-forth, it would surely make for a cleaner, better game. Also, we would get rid of this ludicrous "taking one for the team" situation. Win-win all round I would say.
Mind you, I am not holding Rugby up as a paragon, compared to football. Since professionalism came into the handling game, standards have slumped, across the board. Offences such as squint feeding of the scrum have seemingly been allowed by the authorities; the need to kick a penalty, even to touch, through the mark, is no longer insisted upon and that's before you get to one of my personal bug-bears, foot faults when the hooker is throwing-in at a line-out. Rugby too has its problems with behaviour, but, theirs are nothing like as extreme as football.
I feel, if a sin bin was brought into football, it would have, very quickly, a effect on behaviour, and you wouldn't see stupid yellow and red cards such as that picked-up by Mr Halliday on Monday night.
I do not believe footballers are naturally stupider than rugby players, but, I am convinced the football authorities are stupider than their rugby equivalents, in matters of the behaviour, or misbehaviour, they allow.
Rugby is a game for hooligans, played by gentlemen; football is a game for gentlemen played by hooligans - or so they say. In terms of behaviour, the football-playing hooligans, obviously, need closer policing. Why doesn't this happen?
Another thing, with passing reference to Monday night. Once Barry Cook flashed his red card, he was surrounded by protesting Rangers players. Why doesn't football take another leaf out of the rugby book? When a rugby player is about to be red-carded, the referee stops the game, waves all the players back, then summons the offender - AND HIS CAPTAIN. He then explains to both: why the player is being sin-binned, or sent off. The player knows, as does the captain - any other player who wants to put-in his twopenceworth, is sent packing away from the conversation.
Now, if a football referee was to instigate this - sending all but the offender and his captain away, on pain of another yellow card, it would help take the aggression and bad feeling out of the game. Mind you, to get the players to toe the line, there might have to be a blitz of yellow cards, but, I am sure, eventually, the players would get the message and a better, more-watchable game would emerge.
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