Another mark in the debit Collum
Ryan red's so off

By Bill Leckie
Published: 23 hrs ago
2
AS Scottish football searches for a road to redemption, the people who referee its referees have a crucial decision to make.

Do they want to be part of the solution?

Or are they happy to carry on being one of our game’s biggest problems?

Because right now, the man in the middle is too often the enemy. Too often the star of the show. Too often a reason to hate the very thing you love.

And the most depressing thing of all is that those above them — the suits in FIFA and the SFA, the spies in the stands — don’t seem to give a toss.

They’ll probably be marking Willie Collum’s performance in Dundee United’s 3-1 win over Hearts as an A-plus. Another gold star for the Golden Child.

The fact that thousands who paid to be at Tannadice or who were paid to provide the entertainment went home cursing the guy is neither here nor there.

After all, what do THEY know, the players and the managers, the punters and the press box?

Well, we know enough to form a considered opinion that the way SFA androids like Collum handle football matches consistently engenders anger and bitterness, ruins perfectly decent contests and reduces the value hard-pressed working people get for their inflated admission fees.

Seriously, some refs these days remind me of the kind of policeman on duty at peaceful demos who itch for someone to get stroppy so they can baton them and start a proper ruck.

None more so, as regular readers will be all too aware, than Collum. Barely a match goes by under his control without one side or other — and sometimes both — complaining that he’s mishandled a crucial incident.

Even allowing for the fact that dissent and naked abuse are occupational hazards for any man in the middle, the level of grief that follows this guy around is quite startling.

And with calls like the one he made to send Ryan Stevenson off Saturday, no bloody wonder.

The Hearts midfielder doesn’t go in looking to hurt Gary Mackay-Steven. He doesn’t go in two-footed. He doesn’t hurt the United man.

When the pair make contact, the home fans don’t go up in the air about it. United players don’t crowd round, demanding action.

In short, the challenge was an irrelevance in terms of the match. It could easily have passed by without a single reporter noting it down. At very worst, it was maybe a yellow.

So how come Collum felt the need to stride over, whip the red card out of his top pocket and put Hearts down to ten men?

And more importantly, how come everyone you spoke to who was there KNEW he would?

That moment, that over-reaction, that failure to understand the difference between a nothing tackle and an act of violent conduct summed up everything that’s wrong with refereeing.

Of course, what we then had in this case was the ready-made conspiracy theory that Collum had only done Stevenson because he failed to send him off for a far worse lunge at Hibs skipper James McPake in the Edinburgh derby at New Year.

Only the whistler himself knows if that’s the case — though for many reasons I’d really, really hope it’s not, as it would bring into question not only his ability, but his judgement and his ethics.

No, let’s just take this incident at its own merits.

Afterwards, Hearts boss John McGlynn said Stevenson had been told he had to go because the rulebook said so.

Well, if that’s true, how come minutes later Danny Wilson clearly took Johnny Russell’s ankles from the back and wasn’t booked? Because if he had — and the rulebook says he should have been — then a second-half booking for an off-the-ball clash with Mackay-Steven would have meant Hearts were down to nine.

But even then, let’s look at that off-the-ball incident. I was following the ball and only saw Mackay-Steven go down, but did see him get back up, shake hands with Wilson and get on with the game.

Which begs the question: Why couldn’t the referee see they were fine with each other, acknowledge linesman Willie Conquer for bringing the handbags to his attention and let the game flow?

Why, while we’re at it, did he then spoil Willo Flood’s joy at scoring a glorious goal by booking him for celebrating in the general vicinity of away fans?

Incitement, the rulebook calls it. But if so, then surely any player who nutmegs an opponent in front of the opposition fans should be booked on the grounds of that being as likely to get them out of their seats screaming abuse?

That, though, would be making decisions with the players in mind. And that would never do.

None of the biggest calls at Tannadice on Saturday took into consideration the commitment players make to winning 50-50s.

Or the ability they have to accept the odd kick as an occupational hazard, the fact that they sometimes fall out and be pals again in the blink of an eye, the explosion of excitement they get from scoring a goal.

Everything Willie Collum did was to appease FIFA’s rule-makers, the SFA’s pen-pushers and to maintain his own sense of what his place within the game is.

And that’s only one ref, in one match, on one day. If we took all the anger and frustration caused by every jobsworth decision across a season, it could power a city like the screams of kiddies in Monsters Inc.

It’s an issue that needs sorted every bit as much as the league system, the national team’s woes or financial fair play.

It’s crucial someone realised that the rule-obsessed actions of men like Collum are pushing us towards anarchy.

It’s time for the people who referee the referees to stand up. And tell us whose side they’re on.