[Fredstersafool]

Who was the ref??

[St Charles Owl]

You guys and your refs!!  It seems every team, every week in Scotland get a bias/dodgy/crap (delete as appropriate) ref at their game. Either the standard of refs is exceptionly poor or Scottish football fans are all conspiracy theorists at heart!!!

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Aside from the ref, good win today and a very much needed 3 points!! Irrespective of the performance, the points were the important thing today.

[hfcbounce]

Who was the ref??

A guy called Craig Charleston Fred. Absolutely Hopeless stopped the game at every opportunity no advantage play and as for the stonewall pen claim beyond belief. 
On a more positive note just short of 9000 at the game yesterday happy at that more coming back at the time which is good to see

[0762]

You guys and your refs!!  It seems every team, every week in Scotland get a bias/dodgy/crap (delete as appropriate) ref at their game. Either the standard of refs is exceptionly poor or Scottish football fans are all conspiracy theorists at heart!!!

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Aside from the ref, good win today and a very much needed 3 points!!  Irrespective of the performance, the points were the important thing today.

A quick reply to your 1st remark, albeit a tongue in cheek one, Saint Charles Owl - this referee shouldn't be officiating even juvenile matches if that's his normal level of performance - it was unacceptable and you really had to be there to witness it - no common sense and no perceived decent standard whatsoever! These guys are being paid a decent match fee by both clubs. Therefore we should expect a bit better accountability than what was observed yesterday afternoon. There is a problem when a referee plays a big part in spoiling a football match as a spectacle and that should not be happening!! The standard of refereeing is generally poor in Scotland and I believe it's that way because we don't have a great pick of referees in this country - there is not enough folk interested in progressing up the ranks and refereeing football matches and who can blame them! That leaves a limited choice for the Scottish Football Association and consequently the overall standard of refereeing is likely to be poor. I wish the official ref observer's system was far more proactive than it appears to be, the onus being to demote poorly performing referees and replace them with potentially better ones! That's at least a formal method of improving the standard of refereeing and that would be to the benefit of football at the top level and indeed at the levels below that as well.

[St Charles Owl]

When I lived in the UK and went to Wednesday games home and away, it was fairly rare that I came away thinking that the ref had been the decisive difference between the teams. Sure there was always those times when you think it should have been a pen, but those were usually 50-50 anyway. It seems to me that the refs in England are far more consistent with their performances that they were in the 70s and 80s and with all the cameras now available to TV it is still fairly rare that a decision is blatantly wrong.

You mention the ref observer system being more proactive and demoting poorly performing refs but surely if they really wanted to be proactive they need to be offering more and better training and coaching of these refs to improve them rather than just replacing them. I know the refs down in England attend a lot of courses and also spend time at the clubs going over rule changes and working with the players. It seems refs in Scotland must show some potential to get to the league level but after that maybe the learning stops, when in fact it should be greatly increased so that they can rise to the next level. Maybe this is another area where the SPFL are just not up to it like we see with other aspect of the game, particularly the TV contract.

[Fredstersafool]

Let you into a wee secret SCO the SPFL have nowt to do with the refs it's the SFA

[St Charles Owl]

Let you into a wee secret SCO the SPFL have nowt to do with the refs it's the SFA

Then its just as bad!!

[Fredstersafool]

No it's no because it's no the SPFL who supply them it's the SFA all down to them for this.