Referee runs into trouble as Livingston surge ahead

REFEREES, like goalkeepers, have a vested interest in football matches being as eventful as possible, for the simple reason that games contested at breakneck speed provide the best examination of their mettle.

Like the gloveman who emerges from 90 minutes of demented goalmouth activity bruised by an array of repelled shots, no official can leave a game more satisfied than when he has successfully pacified a running battle.

However, when a referee’s authority is sought at a frequency of three or four times a minute, like at Almondvale on Saturday, you can glean a far truer impression of their ability than when they glide untroubled through a clean fight.

Dougie McDonald, in charge of a game whose tempo was suddenly and permanently stoked into a furnace by the first-half sending-off of Alan Maybury, may feel he could have taken better advantage of being caught in such a tempest.

David Bingham and David Fernandez claimed the glory for securing this result with their assured second-half headers, and Phillipe Brinquin gave a flawless performance illuminated by two perfect, assisting crosses, but at the end of it all, one man alone was left trapped in the game’s tail-lights.

In overseeing Livingston’s fraught but ultimately unsurprising passage to a nine-point lead over their regional rivals - the advantage reflecting the sum of points they have taken from three meetings with Hearts - the kindest criticism you could lay at McDonald’s feet would be to say that his report card presented a mixed bag.

The errors were many and varied, and, though often understandable, never easy to justify.

Rather than utilising the persuasive evidence of his eyes, in booking Ricardo Fuller and Barry Wilson for diving, the referee appeared to base his verdict on the probability that these players would inevitably have used the situations in question to their advantage.

Fuller seemed to have simply lost his balance after tussling with two Livingston defenders and tumbling in numerous instalments inside the box. In reprimanding him, you feel that McDonald may have borne in mind previous incidences of the Jamaican prevailing in such cases.

The referee was able to cancel out any ill feeling by awarding Fuller a penalty in the dying moments. Stephen Simmons, though, epitomised Hearts’ stodgy afternoon by tamely rolling his kick into the arms of the formidable Livingston keeper, Nick Culkin.

Shortly prior to this, Wilson, purporting to round Roddy McKenzie and score a third goal for the home side, was clearly fouled by the Hearts goalkeeper in the box.

But the fact that Wilson’s collapse seemed to begin before contact was made persuaded McDonald that his intentions were probably not entirely honourable. It might not have been a dive, but it looked like one. Yellow card.

In dismissing Maybury - a decision that infuriated Craig Levein, the Hearts manager, to the extent that he cited it as the most telling factor in his team’s defeat (never mind his own wholly negative reaction to the reduction in personnel, leaving Fuller as the sole attacking threat by taking off Gary Wales) - McDonald seemed to be punishing the nature of the physical act, rather than making a considered interpretation of the offence.

Maybury had lightly tapped Fernandez’s ankle on Livingston’s left flank and the Spaniard fell forward, grabbing the ball in recognition of the referee’s likely awarding of a free-kick.

Displeased at what he saw as a cocky assumption, Maybury dashed in and rammed his right foot into the ball, his toes impacting simultaneously - and not without dangerous force - with the body of his opponent.

As an irate Jim Leishman cantered from one dugout to the other to protest at what he saw as a cold-blooded assault, McDonald adjudged the Irishman’s act to have been so, and ended his participation.

"I have to say that the referee made a mistake," concluded Levein. "Alan said he never heard the whistle and I believe him because I didn’t hear it either. And as far as I know, you can’t get sent off for kicking the ball, no matter how hard you kick it."

However, Levein may have missed the point. There seemed no logical reason why Maybury, two feet from the touchline, needed to crash the ball so powerfully out of play.

Nor did the Hearts manager approve of McDonald’s policy of strictly chastening of anyone he perceived to be diving. "It’s a worrying trend," he said. "We’ve got a player [Fuller] whose natural game is to run at people, and if every time someone goes down in the box they are getting booked, it will stop players from playing like that."

In the final analysis, there may have been mitigating factors behind McDonald’s performance, but there was something deeply ingrained in his attitude that somehow lent support to Levein’s critique.

The one inescapable conclusion to be gleaned was that, as McDonald trotted from controversy to controversy with a manic smile, he was extracting just as much pleasure from this drama as anybody in the stands.

Referee: D McDonald. Attendance: 9,150

Taken from the Scotsman