We will probably never know how daft Layrea Kingston feels today if he did, indeed, accuse Steve Conroy, the referee at Pittodrie, of racism.

Kingston, a controversial figure during this ill-tempered affair, was rightly sent off midway through the second half following a second bookable offence as he crashed into Barry Nicholson.

It left the Aberdeen midfielder sporting a sling at the testimonial dinner for his club captain, Russell Anderson, on Saturday night, and a doubtful starter for the vital rearranged Premierleague game at Motherwell tomorrow night.

Then in the aftermath of the Pittodrie side's deserved win, after Steve Lovell's expertly executed seventh minute goal, Conroy was left with a bad taste in his mouth, as Kingston labelled him a racist. Cue a second red card, though we have no knowledge of whether the official informed the Ghana-ian that his wife was black.

It was a pity the incident, which will form the most interesting segment of Conroy's report to the SFA, overshadowed such an important win for the home side as even their most ambivalent sup-porters now begin to accept Aberdeen might be playing European football next season.

What, then, might we expect from Tynecastle today, if anything? An apology perhaps?

It is certainly difficult to see how those at Hearts can tough this one out, but at Tynecastle anything is possible.

As for the game, it was a miserable 90 minutes where skill was replaced by determination and diligence with Aberdeen displaying greater amounts of each quality, a fact with which Steve Frail, the Hearts assistant head coach, did not disagree. He was, however, puzzled that, in such a physical match, yellow cards were raised to five of his players while the home side escaped such penalties.

Aberdeen will now go into tomorrow night's encounter at Motherwell fuelled by the knowledge they are in a strong position in the race for Europe and that a win would instil in them confidence for the visit to Ibrox at the weekend.

However, Scott Severin, Aberdeen's influential playmaker warned: "It is important we take something from the game at Motherwell otherwise the win over Hearts would be rather pointless."

Frail could only acknowledge Aberdeen's greater desire and they deserved the points. "It makes our quest for European football more difficult," he said. "But we are not out of it and Aberdeen didn't secure a Uefa Cup spot by beating us."

By FRANK GILFEATHER

Taken from the Herald