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A TOUCH OF DALLAS FOR
WANNABE REFEREE DOUGAL
March 30th 2008 The way yesterday's Old Firm referee Stuart Dougal went about his business reminded me of former ref Hugh Dallas. Dallas loved to be the star of the show playing to the galleries with his head shaking and hand waving amateur dramatics. Dougal was just like that yesterday, not content with just telling the players why he made a certain decision he had to act it out to the watching millions as well. It is a pity he didn't pay more attention to what was actually happening in the game rather than trying to carve out a career in acting. His first and most important blunder would have had a major bearing on the match, had he got the decision right it would have resulted in a red card for Whittaker and a penalty for Celtic. Scott Brown was tripped by the Rangers defender in the first half as he was about to shoot and in the end Brown scuffed his shot as he was stumbling forward. The fact that Brown didn't fall to the ground when he was tripped saved the defender from an early bath and referee Dougal from having to produce a red card and award a penalty. There was an incident in a game involving Liverpool last season where Steven Gerrard was tripped in the box, stumbled but still managed to get a decent shot at goal but because Gerrard did not gain an advantage the referee then awarded a penalty. That of course was Liverpool and we are talking about a Celtic player
at Ibrox being tripped in the box, very different circumstances - Neil
Lennon can tell you how difficult it is to get a penalty there. The second big blunder Dougal made was not producing a second yellow card to send off Rangers' Kevin Thomson for an outrageous dive about 15 minutes from the end of the match. Thomson who was already on a yellow card kicked Celtic striker Georgios Samaras then threw himself to the ground in the hope that the referee would see it as a trip by the big Celt. For reasons only known to referee Dougal, Thomson was spared the red card and instead Celtic goalie Artur Boruc was given a yellow card for protesting the decision. When Thomson went down even the most biased of Rangers fans were not howling for a free kick because they could see it was such an obvious dive.
Fearing the worst, Rangers captain Barry Ferguson tried to get Thomson to get up quickly and signalled to the bench that he didn't require treatment but Thomson was carried off on a stretcher after a near four minute delay - time that was not fully added on at the end of the match. Despite the inadequacies of the match officials which was a major factor, Celtic were beaten because they conceded a goal and failed to score any. It will be a tough but far from impossible task to win the SPL title now so we all need to get behind the team for the remaining games, even those who want Strachan out.
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To be fair to Dougal there were a lot of players between him and
Thomson so he may well not have been able to see the incident, an excuse
that his linesman can certainly not use given that he was looking right at
it with nothing obstructing his view at all.