What A Referee

BEING a Kilmarnock supporter, I was not best pleased when I heard what had transpired at Rugby Park yesterday. Bad enough to lose to Aberdeen, but, to have three men red-carded, well, that's piling embarrassment on top of shame, or, is it the other way round.

Steven McLean upsetting Kilmarnock yesterday

Apparently referee Steven McLean “Had a Kazakhstan,” a performance so bad as to almost defy description. OK, officials, like players, are not immune from a bad day at the office. As our American cousins say: “Shit happens,” and Killie and McLean appear to have been caught in a shit storm yesterday.

Now, of particular concern to we older Kilmarnock fans is the fact, Steven's dad Stuart is a club legend, one of the all-time, long-serving greats of the club. So, maybe, we feel, as the son of a legend, Steven should also be a fan and ought to cut Killie some slack.

Sadly, unless of course his allegiance is to either half of the Bigot Brothers, bias, even sub-conscious bias is not allowed a Scottish referee. The unwritten code of Scottish football is: “Honest refereeing mistakes only ever happen in games involving the Old Firm.” For everyone else, it is a case of: suck it up suckers.

Having, as I have, spent a lot of time covering rugby, I am well aware of one of the differences in that code. Nearly every rugby referee has started off in a rugby club, so club affiliations are known. Indeed, until fairly recently, match officials were identified by their club of origin. The great Allan Hosie for instance was always: “Mr A Hosie (Hillhead HSFP), while the equally great Jim Fleming was always: “Mr J Fleming (Boroughmuir).”

Today, the top officials are identified as: “SRU” if they are on the Union's High Performance List, or by which of the Regional refereeing societies to which they belong. But, it always has been, and still is, possible for a rugby referee to officiate in games involving his home club.

Generally this works well, however, just occasionally, an official in-charge of a game involving his home club has appeared to perhaps over-compensate for that known allegiance. Indeed, two or three years ago, I suggested to one top Scottish referee that he ought perhaps to excuse himself if rostered to officiate at his home club, since I had detected what I thought was him offering the opposition a leniency around the breakdown, not afforded “his” club. To his credit, he has not officiated at the club since, and nobody holds this against him.

Perhaps this is the answer for Steven McLean; for him to tell the SFA not to schedule him for any Kilmarnock games. I say this because, I believe there may be an element of over-compensation in how he referees their games.

Certainly, I do not see anything happening – other than needless pain for the club, if Kilmarnock were to tell the SFA: “We will not accept Mr McLean as a match referee again.” In fact, knowing how their minds work on the sixth floor at Hampden, Killie would probably find Steven rostered to referee every game they played.

There is also a growing belief that Aberdeen are bringing the old Auchinleck Talbot tactic of .extreme intimidation into the senior game. Back in the Willie Knox era, Talbot were the masters of intimidating and winding-up the opposition until these opponents cracked and went too-far, in which case, the Talbot players did their dying swan acts, and the referee was surrounded by a lynching party of players in black and gold, demanding the immediate expulsion of the opposition offender.

Aberdeen are now getting that reputation and certainly, in their last two games, they have put it about a bit to good effect. Unfortunately for them, they picked on Celtic for one such display of aggressive behaviour, only to find, Craig Thomson was sticking to the script and having none of their nonsense, whereas, at Rugby Park, Steven McLean appears to have largely bought it.

What's the answer? Well, Steven Clarke could always try the old Jock Stein tactic of reminding his players, stay out of the bother and don't give the referee an excuse to make a mistake which might cost you.

WE ARE now at that time of any year which the churnalists and stenographers of the mainstream football-writing media love, when they can speculate ad infinitum on who is going to inherit a managerial vacancy.

Scot Gemmill - ante-post favourite for the Scotland job

This of course, is the third biggest job in management in Scotland – the National Team Manager/Head Coach role. I checked-out “The Sack Race” website, which offers a field of 34 potential managers, at odds varying from 6/4 out to 150/1.

One or two of these “runners” at big odds are, I would suggest, purely click bait. I do not see the likes of Harry Redknapp, Kenny Dalglish, Graeme Souness, Walter Smith or Neil Lennon being realistic candidates.

Similarly, I cannot wait for the reaction of the fans with lap tops to a return for Gordon Strachan, who is a 50/1 shot in the betting; given the part the fitba writers played in getting him sacked after he had overseen a definite improvement in our performances. In any case, the wee ginger one didn't exactly have the easiest of relationships with the scribblers.

Scot Gemmill – who is the identikit SFA insider, is the ante-post favourite at 6/4; second favourite is Killie boss Stevie Clarke at 2/1, followed by David Moyes at 8/1 and Slavan Bilic at 12/1, the same odds as Derek McInnes.

As I have said, often, it matters not a jot who gets the job, until we change the whole system, and start to promote native talent, we will get nowhere.