Scott Brown offers the occasional day release from his back pocket to allow Andy Halliday to play for Hearts and to earn some extra corn from his podcast appearances, but it may be time for Broony to consider revoking that pass, just to save the lad from embarrassing himself any further.
Halliday’s comments as reported in Daily Record that the reaction to Bobby Madden’s – his podcast pal – weekend refereeing performance was ‘most overreactive ever’, could only be viewed as reasonable through the tint of blue specs – something Madden absolutely did not request as his annual freebie from his employer’s sponsor.
“Listen, I don’t think Bobby Madden had a great game. It’s probably one of the most overreactive responses to a refereeing performance I have ever seen. I have seen worst refereeing performances in the last fortnight than I seen yesterday.
“I think you could tell from the first couple of minutes he was trying to let stuff go, which can often happen in these games.”
There has been little suggestion anywhere that Celtic deserved anything but defeat from Sunday’s Scottish Cup final, but it is far from an overreaction to suggest Bobby Madden refereed the match so poorly as to have a direct impact on the outcome.
The Celtic Star has already highlighted the four challenges that would have warranted yellow cards in their own right for John Lundstram this morning. Every one is a yellow card in their own right for any other self-respecting referee, but not for Bobby Madden. Yet Callum McGregor attempting, but failing to, trip an opponent was immediately cautioned.
Madden’s performance was littered with inconsistencies – so much so that Pat Bonner, commenting post-match on the BBC, stated such tactics on the European stage would have left Celtic facing nine opponents.
At the start you could have considered he was waiting for agitated minds to calm down and allowed the odd over exuberant tackle to pass without rebuke – as Halliday hints referees often take such an approach in derby games. Yet it soon became apparent tolerance was going to be offered to only one side whilst the other had carte blanche to foul at will. Indeed, the gameplan of the opposition seemed so reliant on such an approach it was as if they’d been forewarned to expect such leniency.
As such the fallout to Madden’s adjudication on Sunday from many who comment on Scottish Football – including those without skin in this game, such as Michael Stewart – is something that bears up to scrutiny. For Andy Halliday to suggest otherwise smacks of cronyism and a performance of a referee viewed through the same blue tinted glasses Bobby Madden didn’t request from Specsavers.
It really is time Broony popped Halliday back into the pocket of his dodgy golfing breeks and took him for a long, long walk around 18 holes.
Niall J
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