Richmond in the middle for Celtic at Motherwell
It’s the name game for the other officials at Fir Park.
There has been a lot of talk about referees in the build-up to the Motherwell v Celtic clash at Fir Park tomorrow but none from the Glasgow side.
Scottish football fans are happy to throw the “paranoia” tag at Celtic fans but all of the chat about referees in recent weeks has been coming from other sources, Jim Gannon being one of them.
Apart from last weekend though, when Gannon avoided a post-match press conference in order to avoid dispensing his opinion on referees.
Charlie Richmond is the man in the middle for the Sky encounter and he will undoubtedly be in the spotlight.
Any Celtic match is pored over with every debatable decision contested and over-analysed, by pro and anti-Celtic people alike. When you add in the recent behaviour of Jim Gannon, Richmond will feel as though he is in an analyst lab, given the way his every movement will be studied.
It probably won’t help him to look around and see that Tom Murphy is running the line.
It is not often that a surname can get a person into trouble so it is rather ironic that the man with no surname, Walter from Rangers was the one to highlight the surname Murphy as perhaps being troublesome for Rangers.
In an outburst related to one or two questionable assistant referee decisions, Smith decided it was fair game to question the linesman, drawing particular reference to his surname. Perhaps Smith felt there was something mystical about the name…or maybe it was an updated version of the old Glasgow game “what school did you go to?”
It is the sort of questioning that would see a Celtic manager mocked for paranoia but it was overlooked by the Scottish media.
Best not to tell Walter that the other assistant referee has a surname of Sweeney and the 4th official goes by the name of O’Reilly.
Either way, it can only be hoped that the post match analysis of Motherwell v Celtic is able to focus on goals, great saves and a thrilling encounter as opposed to who the referee was.
Silence from Jim Gannon, although not self-enforced, will be music to the ears of the SFA.
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