Honest mistakes

Honest mistakes

Spending much more time at home due to the Covid 19 pandemic has a few suffering from what was once called ‘cabin fever.’ We may not have reached the levels of irritability and restlessness which once afflicted prospectors stuck in a log cabin during winter in the Yukon or submariners spending long periods at sea but more than a few are missing their outings to the pub or the football. It isn’t only the 90 minutes of action on the field we miss but the journey to the stadium, the pre match trip to the pub, chatting with friends and those around us at the match. Then of course there is social media which allows us to debate, squabble, dissect a game and generally spout off like a Twitter Trappatoni or a Facebook Ferguson.

With the ongoing lockdown, we are left looking at videos of games past, speculating what might happen to the remaining fixtures of 2019-20 season and generally coming to realise what a big part football plays in the lives of so many of us. One online conversation concerned recently centred around what some like to call ‘Celtic Paranoia.’ As far back as the foundation of Celtic there has been a suspicion among many who follow Celtic that at certain times in its history there have been individuals in officialdom who have been less than even handed in their dealings with the club. There are also some among the much maligned refereeing fraternity who have on occasion made decisions or statements which defy logical explanation but how much of this is down to bias and how much incompetence?

Willie Maley in his book written to celebrate Celtic’s first 50 years in 1938 remarked in that understated way of his that after some games players were ‘much aggrieved about the officiating.’ Celtic, the so called Irish, Catholic club in Scotland would not, it seemed, be immune to the prevailing attitudes of some in society at the time. The actions of certain officials didn’t stop Celtic being a successful club in those first 50 years, indeed in 1938 when Maley’s book was published Celtic were champions.

My old man was in no doubt that what he saw growing up in the years after World War 2 was evidence of bias against Celtic. Of course Celtic’s lack of success in those years was more down to poor planning and decision making within the club than any decisions made by referees. A club the size of Celtic almost being relegated in 1948 cannot be explained by poor refereeing but that apart he did give examples of things he saw which were hard to explain. The infamous Cox-Tully incident involved Rangers player Sammy Cox delivering a kick to the groin of Charlie Tully in front of 95,000 witnesses. Tully collapsed in a heap as Celtic fans behind the goal awaited the inevitable sending off for Cox. The inaction of the Referee caused crowd trouble and bottles flew. The Herald Newspaper describes the scene in the following words…

‘There is no doubt about what caused the crowd trouble- the foul committed by Cox on Tully after 30 minutes play and the astonishing attitude of the referee in ignoring the offence and actually waving play on.’

It is unusual for sports reports of the time to criticise officials and their ire was usually pointed towards players who did not accept refereeing decisions like gentlemen. The name MC Dale also cropped up in my old fella’s lexicon of biased officials out to do Celtic down. In a match against Rangers in 1946 he gave a hotly disputed penalty to Rangers and sent of two Celtic players who expressed their disgust at the decision. Celtic players suggested that the Referee reeked of whisky and it was reported that he needed help filling out his post-match report. Bob Crampsey, author and football historian said of those days …

‘Many of the Press were uneasy about what they considered to be scandalously partial refereeing. There had been disputed decisions in Rangers favour in both matches (Cup ties) and when Dumbarton were equally dissatisfied with the handling of a league match at Ibrox, Waverley, a normally phlegmatic Journalist was moved to reply to a plea from Mr R Lindsay, Chairman of Dumbarton, ‘’You are right in saying that Rangers don’t want favours from Referees but they certainly get them. I appeal to the SFA to let it be known that so far as whistlers are concerned all clubs are equal.’’

One name bound to get my old man angry was that of RH Davidson, an official who reduced the 1970 Scottish Cup final to the level of farce with his decisions. You will find the goals from that game online but not the incidents which went a long way to deciding the game and you have to wonder why? Aberdeen was a fine side then and learned from their 1967 cup final defeat that they shouldn’t approach the game defensively. That being said the Referee skewed the game so badly we’ll never know what would have happened had a competent referee been in in charge. Firstly, he awarded Aberdeen a hugely controversial penalty when a cross struck Bobby Murdoch on the shoulder. Bobby Lennox was the victim of two awful decisions the first of which saw the Dons keeper Bobby Clark drop the ball at his feet and Lennox netted. The referee awarded a foul. Then as Lennox raced in on goal a desperate last ditch tackle from Martin Buchan scythed him down in the box. Astonishingly, Davidson waved play on. Some Aberdeen fans were honest enough to say that although delighted to have won, Davidson ruined the match.

Too often though, poor refereeing has been used as an excuse for failure. The folk memory of biased officials, real or imagined, has Celtic supporters antennae fine-tuned as they judge decisions. There are still things which occur which defy logic though. The sending off of Tony Shepard in the 1986 League Cup Final with Rangers after the referee was struck by a coin leads one to ask what the referee’s thought patterns were. He cannot have seen Shephard strike him as it didn’t happen and the error of his ways was apparent when the Celtic player lifted the coin from the turf and showed it to the official who to his credit reversed the decision but why reach for the red card in the first place when he hadn’t seen the player do anything which merited it?

The Farry-Cadete saga was another incident when an official seemed to be acting in a manner which put Celtic at a disadvantage. Normally registering a new player takes no more than a day or two as fax messages are exchanged with his previous association. Farry held up Cadete’s registration for six weeks at a vital time of the season. Cadete missed key matches which he may (or may not) have influenced. Celtic drew 3 SPL games as their striker sat in the stand unable to play. Those three draws were to cost them the title. Fergus McCann brought in his lawyer and comprehensively demolished Farry’s arguments for holding up the player’s registration. He had no option but to resign. Celtic fans immediately saw an official out to hurt the club. Farry’s apologists said he was an over-officious and perhaps pompous man but that he was an honest official. His actions though, remain inexplicable.

Of course fans of other clubs in Scotland find it risible when Celtic supporters talk of bias. How can a club with over 100 major trophies and a treble-treble in the bag be moaning about referees? Football is a fast moving game where officials have a split second to make a call. Having refereed school games I can assure you it isn’t easy to get things right all the time. Errors do occur in professional football and the big Leagues introduction of VAR was aimed at reducing this. What VAR has shown though is that the rules themselves don’t always allow for the smooth running of games. Players are literally called offside when a toe is beyond the last defender. VAR gets it right but infuriates fans who celebrate a goal and then see it disallowed by a fraction of an inch.

I don’t buy into conspiracy theories but I do think over the years there have been some referees who gave my club very little and did so for reasons beyond football. Most are honest men doing a tough job and like all human beings make mistakes. We notice the more obvious ones and the high profile errors which affect the outcomes of games. We don’t tend to notice the efficient officials who get through matches with a minimum of fuss. In many ways the referees you don’t notice are often the best. Others, who boast at sports dinners of ‘never having refereed a game which Rangers lost’ are a disgrace to their profession and sully the reputation of the decent majority.

My old man may have had his suspicions about some of the officials of his time but with wall to wall cameras now the chances of repeatedly making ‘honest mistakes’ are much slimmer. Of course in the heat of the action a referee has to make a call and we all hope it is an objective one. I watch enough football to see that errors occur in most games but that they are down to mistakes rather than bias. The nature of Scottish football and the rivalry between its two biggest clubs means officials are watched like hawks by some who lack any objectivity. We all want football matches which are decided by players’ skill and effort and not poor officiating.

The days of Bobby Davidson are long gone. He simply wouldn’t get away with that in the modern era.