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AndrewLloyd

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  1. I was not at the Celtic game but I did do the 6 hour round trip to watch the 0-0 against St.Mirren the previous weekend. Cost of diesel = £50, Cost to park at TCS = £2, Cost for Adult & Concession in the Main Stand = £47, Cost of 2 Scotch Pies (no Steak pies left) = £3.80... ...value of an uninterrupted day out with my 15 year old son = £priceless.
  2. Lets face facts, Scotland is a small country in terms of land mass and given the population distribution you are going to get what might on the face of it appear to be a disproportionate amount of refs from Edinburgh / Glasgow. There are two obvious remedies to this: 1. Ensure that the onus is in the match officials to declare a conflict of interest when they're invited to officiate in a game. As my earlier post confirmed, this is what they must do in England. 2. To ask the officials to declare an interest in a club (ideally in public) rather than a) nothing as they do in Scotland or b) a region/city as they do in England. I understand that #2 was mooted before and rejected by either the SFA or by the referees themselves. Whilst it may be a cynical view, in a country where a high proportion of supporters must (by definition of their weekly gate) support one of the Old Firm it may be that our officials are unwilling to declare an alligience to Rangers or Celtic as they'll never have the "prestige" of officiating in one of their games? Neither option is a solution to apparent lack of comptence or capability which appears to be the larger issue...
  3. I was not at yesterday's game so cannot comment on the performance of the match officials. I did pose a challenge after I witnessed the last shocking display by a referee (away at Dundee United) as to why the SFA/SPL persists in appointing referees who have the potential conflict of interest of officating a game in which their home town team is playing. At Tannadice a quick post-match Google revealed that the referee had been born in Dundee. Yesterday's referee, Crawford Allan, is from Edinburgh! I do not know Crawford Allan. I'm sure that he is a man of the utmost integrity (he works for RBS after all ). My issue is not with him it is with the SFA. The SPL rules simply state that "The Referee, Assistant Referees and reserve official for League Matches shall be appointed by the SFA from the Lists of Class 1 Match Officials". The SFA web site says nothing about how match officials are actually appointed. In England the FA rules require that the referee's registration is held by their local Parent Association ("A Referee must be registered with The Association through the Affiliated Association withinthe area in which the Referee resides, which will be deemed that referee's ParentAssociation (or County)"). There does not appear to be anything in the English Premier League or FA rules to prevent a Class 1 official being appointed to officiate a Premier League game in his/her Parent Association area. That said I doubt that you'd often see Howard Webb officiating at a game in Rotherham (when he's from) or in South Yorkshire in general (where he's registered). The FA rules do however place a conflict of interest obligation on the referee "A Referee shall at all times act impartially. Where a Referee believes that there is a materialinterest conflicting with the duties and obligations of a Match Official and any appointment,then the Referee shall decline to act or officiate and declare it to the appointing authority". I'm fairly sure that being a supporter of or being from the same town as a club has significant conflict of interest potential. Surely we should be applying a similar conflict of interest test for SPL games? Our referees have a tough job to do. It is frequently made all the harder to do when fans, players, coaches & managers, club directors and QCs ratchet up the pressure. The SFA (or SPL) should do them a favour and remove the suggestion of impartiality by eliminating this obvious conflict of interest.
  4. Honestly, we had a poor game. Notwithstanding that, along with many others, I thought that the referee was even worse than us. Things became so bad that protests of "homer" were frequently heard from the Caley stand in the second half. I was irate enough to do a quick google of "George Salmond referee". To my astonishment, the first line of Wikipedia reads "George Salmond born 1 December 1969 in Dundee" (source: http://en.wikipedia..../George_Salmond). It's a fact; the referee was at "home"! This is totally daft; why would the SFA put a professional referee in the position of officiating in his home town where his neutrality can so easily be brought into question?
  5. We should try this one in Ayr...
  6. My only "live" SPL experience this year was our Cup defeat at Kilmarnock. If the arrogance (of Conor Sammon celebrating Killie's first goal in front of the ICT fans) and so-called professionalism (in time wasting by Jamie Hamill and others) of the Kilmarnock players is anything to go by then much of the joy of football has gone from the SPL. Our support was magnificent that day even if Killie did run out of pies! Let's hope that we can bring our SFL inspired joy of football to brighten up what appears to have become an otherwise dull SPL. We're very much looking forward to a trip "doon the watter" to Ayr on Saturday.
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