Black day for the men in black (or red or yellow).

Referees are in a no win situation but they took centre stage today.

With all six games on the Saturday, the SPL action for the week has already been concluded and it is no surprise to see there have been a number of controversial moments.

Sadly, managers are yet again coming out and making the referees the centre of attention of their post match discussion.
Mark McGhee was naturally delighted at a 1-0 home victory over Rangers where his team had to play for half an hour with 10 men.

Mark Kerr picked up two bookings in the space of ten minutes, with many observers feeling the player was hard done by.

It is difficult for a referee to call everything right but when Aberdeen have received a lot of red cards in recent weeks, the club will naturally believe things are conspiring against them. Considering Rangers were the opposition, it is easy to see why the Red Army would think Craig Thomson was doing his best to bring the champions back into the match.

Thankfully for McGhee, his team held on.

A strange occurrence happened at Celtic Park, not the home side getting a penalty but a player being sent off and then ushered back onto the pitch.

A rather blatant hand-ball by Chris Innes was worthy of at least a booking and it was no shock to see Mike Conroy book the defender. The flash of yellow was followed by a red and the player walked off in disbelief.

His St Mirren team mates quickly gathered around the ref to inform him that Innes had not been booked previously and that mistaken identity had taken place. Eventually, Innes was eventually recalled to the field where the referee apologised.

Innes seemed to respond in jest but there was definitely an edge of malice in the playful tap on the head he admonished to the referee.

Innes’s boss, Gus McPherson, had this to say:

“Mr Conroy thought Chris Innes had previously been booked. It wasn’t until I had seen a couple of players complain that I realised that it was Lee Mair that had got booked earlier.”

However, it was the pulsating 2-2 draw between Motherwell and Dundee United which will gather most of the column inches for the refereeing performance.

Dundee United were reduced to 9 men but both managers focused on the performance of the referee as opposed to their own players efforts in the Fir Park clash.

Motherwell boss Jim Gannon was fairly succinct in his criticism of Alan Muir;

“I think we’ve always got a danger when a referee doesn’t know a foul. It’s a concern for the league. The standard of refereeing is bringing the game into disrepute.”

Craig Levein, as you would expect from a man who had two players sent off, was even more critical:

“I don’t know how much I can say without getting myself in trouble. I thought it was a very poor performance from the referee.”
“He continually got decisions wrong; we had two players sent off who shouldn’t have been.”
“We had a player still on the pitch who should’ve been sent off.”
“I’ve been in football for the majority of my life and recognise a booking and sending off.”
“I think the referee was far too hasty and that was evident in the decisions he made.”

When opposition managers agree on the refereeing decisions, for and against their team, you really get the feeling that it was a bad day at the office for the refs in the SPL.

Maybe next week they’ll get it right?

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