OK - Maybe The Refereeing Has been Poor

OK – WE ARE mostly agreed – the refereeing in Qatar, while generally good has, in the knock-out games been uneven. One or two top referees, presumably given big games on the back of their experience and form, came up short. It happens, not every player gets 8/10 or 9/10 every game, it's the same with referees, they have good and not-so-good games.

The Brazilian referee who had France v England, probably in reviewing his performance with his referee manager, will admit, he got one or two calls wrong. However, to suggest all these calls favoured France (or England) would be to do the official a severe disservice.

Now our southern neighbours are going Tonto at that first half 'penalty' they didn't get when Harry Kane went down on the edge of the box. They may well have a case, until that is, you look at the slow-motion replay.

Then, it becomes clear, the first of three or fouls in that particular coming together was committed by Kane. He pushed the French defender, unbalancing him sufficiently as for him to fall into Kane and bring him down.

VAR got it right – it wasn't a penalty, since Kane initiated the foul play.

THIS MIGHT be deemed 'football blasphemy' but – in view of what we have seen in Qatar, might it be time to make association football 'a non-contact sport.'

I was brought-up on good old-fashioned Scottish Football, where the ability to make a tackle was a lauded talent. My playing hero in the 1960s was Jim Baxter, a man with a left leg with the magical properties of a wand. Critics of the most-gallus man ever to step onto a park would decry his talents because: “He couldnae tackle a fish supper.”

However, Baxter was from Hill o' Beath in Fife. His early football education was on the playing fields of the Kingdom, in Junior games for Crossgates Primrose. You didn't last long in that environment if you didn't know how to ride, or commit a meaningful tackle. It's just, Baxter had such talent, he seldom needed to.

I remember one tackle he made. Indeed, so did Baxter, when I mentioned it to him one day, decades later. This tackle came early in the second half of the Scotland v England game, at Hampden, on 14 April, 1962. That game would largely be decided by who won the battle for midfield control, Baxter for Scotland or Captain Johnny Haynes for England. Baxter had edged the first half fight and Scotland were leading 1-0. But, in the second, Haynes had started to purr, had had one effort cleared off the line and was bringing the visitors back into the game.

Then, as he collected a pass on the half-way line, just in front of the dug outs, Baxter – the man who couldn't tackle – hit him with the most wonderfully-timed challenge, emerging with the ball and leaving Haynes a crumpled heap on the ground. The England captain was a spent force for the remainder of the game.

More than 30 years later Baxter told me: “Aye, Ah mind that tackle, it wis jist aboot the only wan Ah ever made in senior fitba, ken.”

Sixty years on from that coming together at Hampden, international football is a much-different spectacle. Today, it's all about keeping possession, running into space and moving the ball on before a challenge can be made. Thus, when a challenge is made, the players, not having to make as many as their forebearers, often get it wrong.

Tackling is nearly a lost art; maybe we should abolish it and make the game non-contact. Then, punish excessive contact strictly, and, finally we would be answering John Greig's plea from all those years ago for: “protection for us ball players.”

Organised football turns 160 years old next year, while international football has just tuned 150. Maybe it's time England, who codified the laws, and Scotland, who started the international game, got together, used their joint membership of IFAB, The International Football Associations Board to persuade FIFA to commit to a line by line revision of the Laws of the Game, to make them fit for 21^st century football.

TAKE CROATIA as an example. They've only been playing international football since 1996 – that's a quarter of a century. Scotland has been playing international football for 150 years.

In that time, we have capped over 1200 players, yet just one – Kenny Dalglish – has won 100 caps. Against this, the Croatia squad in Qatar includes three caps centurions and a further four players with over 50 caps.

Luka Modric has won 160 caps for Croatia in ten years in the full team. Dalglish won his 102 caps over 15 years and 2 days, during which we played 140 internationals. Therefore, he played in 73% of the games he could have played in.

Jim Leighton, our second-most-capped player won his 91 caps over 143 internationals, played over three days short of six years – a 64% selection rate.

Denis Law won his then record 55 caps in 90 internationals, over 15 years, 8 months – playing in 61% of the available internationals.

George Young, (pictured) the first Scot to play in 50 internationals, won his then record 54 caps in 65 games over 11 years – an 83% appearance record. Billy Wright, the English captain in the picture missed only two internationals in his careeer as an England player - a 98% appearance record.

 

These stats show, we now play more internationals than we used to, but, consistency of selection is not a Scottish strong point. Maybe if we sorted-out this failing of the SFA and successive national managers, we might get further in the major championships.

To be fair, Stevie Clarke has brought to the Scotland job a level of selection consistency which was not obvious from some of his predecessors, so, perhaps, at long last, things are looking up on that front.