Following on from the last piece I do firmly believe that advances in technology might well make the match day experience better for the paying customer.
Other codes within these islands are miles ahead of soccer.
I was at Croker last September and there was a disputed call on a score.
Hawkeye was deployed and the matter settled in a few seconds.
That technology, pioneered in Tennis I believe, will be rolled out in other GAA stadia across this country over the next while.
The new Páirc Uí Chaoimh will be equipped with this dispute settling sorcery.
For me it is always the measure of a Celtic manager as to how he reacts when he hits the wall of the Honest Mistake culture.
Tony Mowbray “took it on the chin” and Ronny Deila looked bewildered at the officiating clusterfucks.
Neil Lennon got angry,very angry.
That’s because he wasn’t reared to sit at the back of the bus.
Of course, the world knows the lovely way in which The People reacted to the man from Lurgan.
Earlier in the season I was told of a quietly irate Brendan Rodgers seeking out the thoughts of a referee post-match.
I believe that his dad used to work for the SFA, but doesn’t anymore.
Ok, I think that might be my fault…
Anyway, I’m told that the young whistler was taken back with the technology that the Irishman was armed with in the referee’s room.
Celtic’s geek brigade have a secret weapon called Dartfish.
I’m told that it is used to analyse matches to improve coaching and, ultimately, player performance.
This software can analyse an incident from various angles and provide various data points on who did what where and when.
One of the selling points of this package is that the data is there in REAL TIME.
Consequently, the Antrim man was able to show the Scottish referee several incidents from various angles immediately after the match.
I’m told that in each of the contentious issues raised by Rodgers the official confessed his incompetence.
The last time I was in Hampden was at the Scottish Cup semi-final between Celtic and Inverness Caledonian Thistle.
I was at the far end of the ground sitting beside my buddy John Fallon.
As Leigh Griffiths headed for goal even the old goalie and I could see it was a handball on the line.
A penalty and red card was the only decision that could have been logically arrived at.
However, the referee Steven Mclean was…ahem…unsighted.
I note with interest that he is the brother of Brian McLean who declared to play for Northern Ireland despite the defender being born in Scotland.
Sadly, due to an administrative error he was not able to turn out for Norn iron
Ah well…
We can only speculate as to the ambience within the Mclean household and their attitude towards a club formed by Irish Catholic immigrants.
Perhaps it was all multi-cultural and tolerant.
I’m sure it was.
Of course, if referee Mclean was required by dint of his SFA employment to state his club allegiance then any such speculation would be largely redundant.
For the avoidance of doubt, there was no such journalistic scrutiny of referee Mclean after that Scottish Cup semi-final.
Once more it was the incompetence narrative.
Not partisan just pish.
Once more, failure to see Josh Meekings save that header on the line in a Scottish Cup semi-final should have been a career-ending error.
It wasn’t.
I wasn’t in the press box at Hampden for that officiating omnishambles in 2015, but I didn’t need to be.
I know what would have been regurgitated.
The clichés are well rehearsed by the stenographers for these inexplicably regular errors involving Celtic:
“The referee had a shocker” and “yeah, he’ll be disappointed with himself”.
I’m glad to note that Scottish football fans respected Brian McLean’s stated wish to play for Northern Ireland.
During the same period Celtic’s Aiden McGeady was regularly subjected to abuse from, ahem, patriotic types in stadia across Scotland.
His cultural crime in Fair Caledonia was to declare from the Republic of Ireland.
Of course, the racist abuse that the Irishman in the Hoops suffered would not be solved by technology.
That takes moral courage and political will and no piece of software can provide that.
However, contentious decisions can be dealt with in seconds.
I was in the press box for the League Cup final between Celtic and Kilmarnock in 2012.
I had a video screen on my work station.
It had a seven second delay.
Consequently, I could look down from the action and see what had already taken place.
This was a great help in writing up what had just happened.
If the fourth official had such a screen and was able to communicate with the referee then the game would not be held up.
In my opinion, the delay argument is used as well, a delaying tactic to bring in these improvements.
Technology is no panacea, but such equipment would prevent the most glaring of these entirely Honest Mistakes.
It would reduce the margin of error significantly and bring that appalling vista into view for The People.
A level playing field.
I am a great admirer of your work Phil but think you’ve got this one wrong.
By the way, we don’t need to speculate about at least part of the McLean family’s attitude to club’s formed by Irish Catholic immigrants – Brian is currently contracted to Hibernian.
The Lambert penalty against Dunfermline was the breaking point for me. Never watched another Pars game against the OF teams after that, other than the cup finals where I witnessed (along with 50000 other fans) Balde punching the ball clear in his own box and setting up Celtics equalizer. Throw in Larsson’s dive to win a penalty in his first home competitive game against Pars for good measure. In fact, my first ever Pars v Celtic game was back in the 80s when Billy Stark (I think) went down like a tonne of bricks for no reason to get a penalty.
Even this season, I have seen Hamilton get a very late penalty against us for a dive that ended up costing us an away tie to Ibrox (And approx £250,000) and also against Morton we conceded a penalty even though our defender was standing still and well outside the box.
And then again, we have had at least 3 awful penalties this year.
Its not intentional bias. Its incompetence. Always been the case. Maybe in OF games refs let their leanings get in the way, but every fan of a ‘privincial club’ will have plenty examples of being stiffed by refs when playing Celtic.
Oh dear.
What about the occasions where Celtic have decisions in their favour?
A Cadette ‘goal’ not over the line at St Johnstone
A dive leading to a Nakamura free kick at St Mirren from which he scored.
The referee blowing for full time at Cappielow in the 60s as the ball was in the air about to cross the line , denying the home team a 4-3 victory after being 3-0 down.
We could go on and on and on and on
Every team has terrible decisions against them .
Possibly the worst ever was David Syme at Firhill in 94 where he missed a Dundee Utd goal after the ball went over the line then rebounded out. He then missed the defender handing the ball to the goalkeeper. So if it wasn’t a goal it had to be a penalty.
Amazingly , Syme waved play on.
Maybe Syme was a Clyde fan as a kid who hated Partick Thistle?!!
Yeah, it couldn’t possibly be down to just seriously bad refereeing .
There must have been an agenda.
See how ridiculous this gets?
It must be possible to draw up a statistical analysis of these issues. It must. I have to say that I found the succession of home ties Rankers were given in the cup run shocking and this is in all probability a surprising statistic.
It would be straightforward to analyse referee decisions going back years because there is plenty of video evidence. And comparisons can be drawn
I would like to point something else out though. In a game against Ross County, Celtic should have had the game put out of reach by 60 minutes in. And they’d better put it well out of reach this Sunday. Dodgy decisions shouldn’t stand a chance of making the difference, and it is up to Celtic to put it beyond doubt. Just as was said above, winning 9 in a row against 12 men is the task at hand.
Happy Paranoia, Phil. Bad decision made – absolutely! Diving is endemic now unfortunately and we’ve had our fair share of divers over the years. Just look at this week’s Champions League for further examples. All teams have gripes ……… move on please, we should be better than this.
Pep.
Happy Paranoia, Phil. Bad mistakes made; absolutely. Life moves on so we need to be better than this. Every team in the land can point at bad decisions Diving is endemic now unfortunately and we’ve had our share too. Move on…..
Pep.
Happy Paranoia, Phil. Bad mistakes made; absolutely. Life moves on so we need to be better than this. Every team in the land can point at bad decisions. Move on…..
Pep.
Hartson,
If you think anti big team bias is bad, try following a wee team (not THE wee team).
Eg. Paul Lambert diving outside the box at East End Park to win a penalty.
Also Sevco f–ked small teams way more than Celtic. The Pars should not have been relegated the year Sevco went tits up. Which led, indirectly, to admin and the near death of a decent club.
A wise old sage told me many moons ago that the biggest achievement in Scottish fitba was not the European cup victory but the fact that Celtic managed to win 9 league championships in succession, throughout that period we had serial Celtic haters like, RH Davidson,IMD Foote, D Sime jnr, T Wharton, It took me many years to come to the conclusion…Ma Da Wiz Right.
Luke’s Grandad,
Yes,he most certainly was?✅?
In fact,I’m quite amazed that my own father didn’t come to the same conclusion.
Excellent observation,he was indeed a very wise old sage.HH
Tom English ‘jokes about the paranoia, suggesting the Bayern fans would allude to the same as it’s all down to the referee.
What he fails to realise, is we acknowledge mistakes and incompetence are very much a part of human nature.
What we cannot accept is the year on year distortion of fairplay, all geared around one club.
I think initially, it was due to religiously bigoted reasons.
Then the ‘only two clubs matter’ narrative to ensure a form of Rangers continues.
But what Tom also misses:
How many home games have Rangers had in cup ties?
At the start of the season, when they needed all the money they could get? Lots of home ties.
Allowing, with full knowledge of the financial issues, Rangers to enter European competition.
The Jim Farry years.
Sandy Bryson and the imperfectly registered players. and the fixed LNS.
The offshore game report.
and so on.
He doesn’t get it because he’s either wilfully ignoring these facts or pushing an agenda.
These are all something that should be of immense concern to a journalist so dedicated to sportsmanship, but never seem to raise more than a smug little comment on twitter to which he then expresses surprise and dismay at the replies he gets.
Theres a great book called Why We’re Paranoid which catalogues the plethora of “honest mistakes” over decades by refs officiating in Celtic matches. Well worth a read.
Para, we’re not para enough
The Scottish footballing authorities will resist introducing video technology for as long as possible because they know which team in Scotland will benefit the most from it.
We’ve been waiting 129 years for things to ‘even themselves out’ but we’re still being told to be patient.
Yes we’ve had the odd decision in ten go our way and Derek Johnstone has to go back constantly to 1977 to recall one such incident that benefited Celtic, but for every one dodgy decision in our favour I know I could come up with 10 that did not.
Do referees go out to cheat Celtic deliberately? Maybe in the past. I don’t believe that they do now but put yourself in their place. Take a fan out of the stand and give him a whistle. The natural reaction is to subconsciously favour the club you support or to overcompensate by deliberately favouring the other team in marginal decisions so that you can’t be accused of bias.
Celtic constantly fall victim to both these scenarios. The cure is video technology. Simple as that.
Video should have been introduced years ago. I am watching Madrid and Bayern and Vidal has been sent of for a perfectly good tackle with the game poised at 3-3. This is for a semi final place in the biggest tourney in Europe. ( Ronaldo just scored in overtime 4-3 offside but counts)
I live in North America and watch every sport knowing the camera will not lie. The cheating, and there is no other word for it, is ruining football. Guys falling over and screaming like big wimmin. Project stop the treble/ undefeated season is well underway. Celtic will have to score early and score often at the weekend
Patrick,
Excellent comment,well made,and you are BANG on the money;as others have commented here it will be Celtic FC that will benefit from it most,hence they aren’t falling over themselves,wee pun there,to make it happen.HH?
Hawkeye was pioneered in cricket, not tennis.
Many thanks
Wanting a problem to not be a problem is not the same as fixing it – note to SFA
I agree 100% on the technology but our paranoia will solve nothing – we are Celtic and we are bigger than that
I remember when we had a private detective follow a top referee who was my friend and as honest as the day is long – his crime was an alleged attendance at a Masonic club- utter pish – he was at the stag night for the son in law of another referee and would you believe it, the son in law was a season ticket holder at our ground.
Let the Huns be paranoid – we are much much better
Whilst I think there have been instances of paranoia in the past from Celtic fans I think you are doing the vast majority of our fans a dis-service on this one. There is no paranoia here – put simply the ref was 15 feet from the incident with a clear enough view in proceedings and the linesman had a clear line of sight from the near side touch line. A penalty was fantasy on this occasion.
This is the 4th or 5th time we have seen ablatantly “wrong” at key moments in a game this season. So there is history here.
I am also struggling to remember the “new”team fans getting apoplectic about the unfair decisions that go against them. They don’t because they don’t have to – it rarely if ever happens to them.
The sheer number of instances and the team they are perpetrated on most consistently blows the paranoia theory sky high. For me at least.
Fact. No paranoid fiction.
Signed – A completely level headed Celtic fan