A blogpost in which, in an act of sheer madness, I express a brief personal view on the Celtic v Hearts controversy

Given the fanaticism of Scottish football supporters, it's not really possible to gently dip one's toe in the water of the controversy over the Celtic v Hearts league decider, but nevertheless that's what I tried to do the other day on Twitter, because I felt that Ewen Murray had directly contradicted himself on the subject.  He said that he had no truck with the allegations that the game had been effectively abandoned, because it was clearly over and Celtic had won.  But he then said that the game only ended when it did because of the pitch invasion.  I didn't see how both of those claims could be true - if the referee had curtailed the game specifically for that reason, it clearly hadn't come to a proper end, and at least technically there was still an open question over whether Celtic had won.

Predictably I was then assailed by an army of tribalistic Celtic supporters who were adamant that anyone who thought that there was even an issue here was an idiot.  Their doctrine was that everything had ended completely normally - a goal was scored, celebrations followed which would not normally result in added stoppage time, and thus the small amount of remaining time was used up naturally and the referee quite properly blew the final whistle without restarting play.  One thing that has become clear from the SFA's release of more information is that those claims are completely untrue.  The referee had not deemed time to be up because of the goal celebrations and instead a sort of purgatory period followed while he tried to work out what to do next.  He only ended the game prematurely because Hearts were supposedly in agreement that he could do that in order to protect their players' safety.

The SFA are therefore hiding behind the rule that states the referee's decision is final, and also behind the consent given by Hearts.  I've no idea whether that defence would stand up in a court of law, but it certainly doesn't pass the fairness test, because Hearts should never have been put in the position of having to choose between their players' safety and getting the chance to see the match through to its proper finish.  And does absolutely anything go in terms of when and why a referee can declare a game over?  Could he stop a game after 70 minutes and award the win to the side that were ahead at that point, without any comebacks at all?  Surely that doesn't stack up.

It might well have been an absurdity to abandon the game and award Hearts a 3-0 win, but I'd have thought the fairest outcome would have been to complete the game somehow after a delay, or to order a replay.  

Incidentally, as you'd probably expect of someone with my surname, I wanted Celtic to win, so I have no axe to grind here, other than a desire for sporting fairness.

*  *  *

Catch up with last Wednesday's critically-acclaimed blogpost: "S*** just got real, lads. The famously always wrong blogger "Stew", who said there was "zero chance, barring nuclear war or an alien invasion" of the Holyrood election producing a pro-indy majority, and who said betting on Angus Robertson to win Edinburgh Central was "free money", has now said there is "NO chance" of victory in a 2029 de facto referendum. Looks like it's ON."

*  *  *

If you enjoyed Scot Goes Pop's 2026 election coverage so much that you started to feel an inexplicable urge to buy me a hot chocolate or a ham-and-cheese toastie, donations are very welcome.  There are three main options: 
a) you can donate by card HERE 
b) you can make a direct PayPal donation to my PayPal email address, which is: jkellysta@yahoo.co.uk

c) you can make a donation by bank transfer - for the necessary details, please drop me a line at my contact email address, which is: icehouse.250@gmail.com