Six of the worst

Don Robertson’s decision to award a penalty against Celtic yesterday was described by Brendan Rodgers as the worst that he had seen up here.

Quite a claim in a season of hard to believe decisions from officials.

At Fir Park on Saturday Willie Collum awarded Motherwell a goal against Inverness Caley Thistle with no evidence to suggest anything like the hole ball had crossed the line.

Last week Neil Lennon commented on how unusual it was to have successfully appealed against three red card decisions given against his players.

There are plenty of mistakes around in Scottish football but for the purpose of this article I’ll concentrate on decisions made in Celtic matches.

In the interests of balance Celtic were awarded a ridiculous penalty in the 5-2 win at St Johnstone, if anyone else can come up with other examples feel free to add a comment.

Two trophies have been won but over the next 12 days two matches will come under greater scrutiny than ever- if they are free of refereeing controversy a minor miracle will have been achieved.

The performances of Robertson and Bobby Madden have put the spotlight on Willie Collum at Hampden on Sunday, it’s a situation he is well used to.

CLINT HILL ON LEIGH RIFFITHS

With just a few minutes remaining Leigh Griffiths pulls himself away from the hands of Clint Hill and gets set to shoot for goal, waiting on the ball to drop.

From behind Hill lunges through the Celtic striker wiping the player out as the ball bounces off Griffiths and rolls to Wesley Foderingham.

Incredibly referee Bobby Madden mouths that ‘he played the ball’. Afterwards his apologists settled for the line that he didn’t give it because he was unsighted. If he can’t position himself to get a view of a shot at goal he should learn his trade again in the juniors.

KENNY MILLER ON STUART ARMSTRONG

Early on in the derby match with Miller running around even busier than usual the ball broke towards Stuart Armstrong.

Fortunately anticipation is one of the midfielders strengths, he saw the 27-year-old lunging in with both feet off the ground and site stepped the collision. Very fortunately.

Madden saw the incident and awarded a free-kick, barely a word was said to Miller. Taking his lead from that incident Jason Holt performed a vicious scissors foul on Patrick Roberts, not even a free kick according to the referee.

RYAN BOWMAN ON KIERAN TIERNEY

With no obvious danger to the Motherwell goal Ryan Bowman launched into a dangerous lunge that struck the player on his left knee.

Fortunately Tierney’s leg was in the air, if it had been on the ground it could well have been a repeat of the John Kennedy injury when a promising talent was killed off way too early. Don Robertson booked Bowman after what looked like a long sympathetic talk.

CRAIG THOMSON DISALLOWING ERIK SVIATCHENKO’S GOAL AT HAMPDEN

He doesn’t score often but the celebrations are always memorable.

As Scott Sinclair’s cross came into the box from the left Erik kept his eye on the ball, shaped up to head it then connected perfectly to glance it beyond Foderingham and into the far corner of the net.

Unfortunately, at the same time, Clint Hill fell to the deck in slow motion with Craig Thomson deciding for reasons best known to himself to blow for a free kick.

THE INCREDIBLE IBROX THROW IN

Fairly trivial in the bigger scheme of things but no less bizarre.

Eight minutes into the December fixture at Ibrox and the home side are pinging the ball around like Brazil 1970.

A long cross field ball is over hit and goes out the park within ten yards of the assistant. The home player frustratingly hooks the ball back onto the park and Emilio Izaguirre heads it forward for Scott Sinclair.

Incredibly the assistant suddenly realises that the ball had gone out and reckons that it was put out by a Celtic player. Referee Steven McLean agrees.

JOHN BEATON AWARDS HEARTS A PENALTY


With Celtic leading 1-0 on the opening day at Tynecastle Brendan Rodgers’ introduction to the domestic game is going better than his trip to Gibraltar.

As Hearts try to put an attack together Jamie Walker decides to take a tumble in the penalty box.

Similar to yesterday John Beaton races to award a fresh air penalty without a word with his assistant. Apparently at half time the referee apologised to Rodgers for his mistake.

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