11-05-2025
Watershed VAR shambles must surely prompt Willie Collum, SFA and SPFL to sit down for major rethink, says Bill Leckie
Our man also has his say on Derek McInnes' proposed move to Hearts
VIDEO NASTY Watershed VAR shambles must surely prompt Willie Collum, SFA and SPFL to sit down for major rethink, says Bill Leckie
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TWENTY-NINE minutes past four on Saturday May 10, 2025.
The day and hour when Scottish football finally went through the looking glass.
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Don Robertson is sent to the screen - but there's nothing to see
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Dundee boss Tony Docherty asks the officials just what is going on
And disappeared right up its own VARs.
A watershed moment that must surely make Willie Collum, the SFA and the SPFL sit down for a major rethink about how we use a technology that was supposed to dig referees out of a hole.
Not make them wish the ground would open up and swallow them.
Because make no mistake, that was how Don Robertson must have felt deep into a Rugby Park relegation six-pointer that was reduced to a farce by one of his own colleagues.
Who could blame him, either? The poor guy was having an excellent day at the office, totally in control of a game where so much was at stake and every decision counted.
But then? Well, what happened next was embarrassing. It was Amateur Hour.
No, scrap that. This was more like Open Mic Five Minutes, a guy in a remote studio itching to get involved, to prove his worth, to get his name known.
Well, Gavin Duncan, you did that all right. Just for the wrong reasons.
So what did he do?
If you haven't seen it yet, here's the gist.
A long ball gets pinged towards Killie's box. Their striker Kyle Vassell — only on as a sub seconds before, still not had a touch — chases back and shoves his opposite number Simon Murray, who hits the deck way inside the 18-yard line.
SFA referees' chief Willie Collum on the big Old Firm decision he got WRONG
Murray gets up screaming at the linesman for a penalty, but Robertson isn't having any of it, play goes on and that seems to be that.
Until at least a minute later, that is, when Duncan shouts in Robertson's ear that it might be a pen after all.
Robertson stops the game, makes the TV sign and walks towards the touchline.
At which point we're all racking our brains trying to think what other incident there's been since the Murray one, because that one was so long ago it almost happened in black and white.
Of course, what doesn't help in these situations is that all we're told — 'we' meaning managers, players, fans, media — is that VAR is checking for a penalty, not why.
So we wait for Robertson to have a look at the monitor and either realise what he's missed or stick to his guns.
Except that, as TV cameras on the far side of the stadium would later confirm, all he could see on the screen was the VAR logo.
No footage, no stills, nothing. Poor guy is standing there shifting from foot to foot like a spare one at a weekend, the punters giving him pelters.
He's called a water break to give the players something to do, but they could have nipped to the Park Hotel for a couple of pints in the time it was taking.
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Willie Colum will have his work cut out sorting out this one
What we didn't know then was Duncan was now explaining in his ear that there was nothing on the screen because, er, in the interim he'd realised the shove was outside the box, which meant VAR couldn't get involved, which means they couldn't show the ref any images.
This is, of course, factually correct. But in terms of common sense? Of basic footballing savvy?
Of gaffer Collum's blood pressure?
Sorry, but it was a shambles.
For a start, Duncan should have been sure of what he was doing before he sent Robertson to the monitor.
Doesn't matter if that took two, three, even four minutes, just get it right.
He should have double and triple and quadruple-checked where the shove happened and THEN raised the alarm.
However, even if in between raising it then and the game being stopped it turned out adrenaline had got in the way and he'd been wrong after all, he should surely have possessed the gumption to give Robertson a look anyway so no one was made a fool of.
As it goes, I don't think it was a penalty.
It was, however, a clear and very obvious cock-up.
And on a day when far more than just points were at stake — we're talking contracts, livelihoods, budgets, sponsorship deals, you name it — and when Dundee were already fuming at being VAR-ed out of a perfectly good goal in defeat to Motherwell the previous week, it was a cock-up too far.
Did it directly affect the end result? No, it didn't.
But what it DID do was encapsulate everything that's wrong with our use of VAR, the all-too-common disconnect between on-field and remote officials, the lack of cool heads at key moments.
Every single top-flight club has compiled its own dossier of these moments.
The ones that robbed them of points or wrongly cost them players to a red card or even just had a detrimental effect on their goal difference.
Dundee may or may not feel they've been worse affected than most and, in the end, this may or may not contribute to them dropping into the Championship.
When Tony Docherty said post-match on Saturday that something has to be done, though, he wasn't just demanding action on his own club's behalf.
He was speaking for everyone who wants VAR to work but who knows that it's failing.
Not through dodgy technology. But the same human error it was brought in to eradicate.
DEREK McINNES isn't just the right man for Hearts this time.
He was the right man the LAST time as well.
Trouble was, back then the Jambos made the bizarre decision that — and I struggle to write the words without laughing — they didn't want to go Scottish.
Not just that they didn't want to make the best available Scotsman their next manager either.
But that they didn't want ANY Scotsman — even if Sir Alex himself had phoned up and offered to come out of retirement for one last shot at glory, they'd have said: 'Sorry, pal, wrong nationality.'
That's not analytics. That's idiotic.
No wonder, then, that the decision on replacing the failed experiment who was Neil Critchley appears to have been taken out of the Tynecastle board's hands.
Something regular readers will know I'd have done four or five vacancies ago.
It isn't that Ann Budge and her cohorts have picked bad managers.
No, what they've had is an uncanny knack for appointing them at the wrong time, for thinking outside the box when sometimes what's needed is a really obvious punt INTO the box.
Still, better late than never, because when — no, let's make that if — every i is dotted and t crossed, McInnes gets the nod, it'll be the first time in nearly a decade they'll have made the right appointment at the right moment for the right seasons.
Though if he's reading this, maybe just one word of advice.
Given that they want the deal done this week and given that they finish the season at Rugby Park, maybe best to develop a case of the sniffles between now and Sunday.
YOU wouldn't have put much money on Hibs and Aberdeen taking much from a weekend when they took turns visiting the Old Firm.
At least in defeat, though, David Gray's men gave their travelling fans something to cheer.
At least they took the lead at Parkhead and had the champions wobbling for a while.
The Dons? Sorry, but they barely laid a glove on Rangers at a half-empty Ibrox.
Sure, they had four shots on target, four more than they mustered in defeat to St Mirren the week before.
But anyone who argues they were ever in danger of getting a result is simply deluding themselves.
Truth is, this was 4-0 going on eight.
THE best strikers are the ones who miss yet keep coming back for more.
On Friday night, that mentality showed why Brian Graham has been one of the best at his level for so long.
A year before, almost to the night, I'd watched him lean back and sky a sitter that would have seen Partick Thistle complete an incredible comeback and knock Raith out of the play-offs.
Instead, they lost a penalty shootout, which must have devastated Graham more than anyone.
Now fast forward to Somerset Park on another frantic Friday night, with the clock ticking to 88 minutes and everything in the balance.
Ball pings around a crowded box. Falls to the old fella, first time, left foot, buries the chance.
Cue chaos, joy, relief, the full bhuna. What a way to erase all those bad memories of Stark's Park last season.
What a moment for a man who it isn't an exaggeration to say has carried his club this season.
Top scorer, skipper, caretaker manager, women's team manager. It's hard to imagine any footballer spinning as many plates as this 37-year-old does.
Few would deserve another crack at the top flight more.
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