A big mistake, no way of couching it- former referee calls out Steven McLean blunders

Steve Conroy has called for an explanation over the two yellow cards issued to Sean Mackie by Steven McLean on Sunday. 

The Raith Rovers substitute was shown his first card for an 83rd minute foul on Daizen Maeda then got another for handball as Celtic were awarded a penalty four minutes later. 

McLean indicated that the card was for handball but it seemed to have escaped his notice that he had booked the same player a few minutes earlier. 

The commentary team on Premier Sport picked up on the double yellow straight away, soon afterwards they were given a message from the fourth official that the second yellow card had been issued to Ross Matthews who had no involvement in the penalty. 

Picking up on the issue in the Daily Express, the Daily Record reports former referee Conroy saying:  

It’s a big mistake and it’s not one that people at his level should not be making. There is no way of couching it. He is not the first and he won’t be the last but that was a mistake on his part. 

I don’t know what the outcome will be from the powers that be, but that was a mistake unfortunately. I don’t know what Steven normally does, but there are no hard and fast rules about how you keep your admin in a game. 

I can admit that I sent off a player for his first yellow in a game and that was down to my bad admin. 

Whatever has happened there he will have to review how he handles his admin in the future. But there should be more than just Steven keeping an eye on that situation. 

At the very least the fourth official should be noting down what’s going on in the game so it’s a systemic failure. 

I don’t know what Steven’s instructions to the assistants would be. My preference was for my assistants to keep an eye on the game rather than write things down. 

Conroy was on the up as a referee until he was put in charge of the January 2010 Glasgow derby. After issuing a yellow card rather than red to Kyle Lafferty for a foul on Andreas Hinkel coupled with disallowing a ‘goal’ from Marc Antoine Fortune there were fewer big match appointments for Conroy who stepped down from refereeing in March 2012.