For the left-tumbling football supporter, the referees’ strike presents something of a dilemma. I was planning on heading to watch the Alba Challenge Cup Final on Sunday, but will this represent crossing the picket line?
Is it even a proper strike if a ballot hasn’t been taken a fortnight in advance and the Daily Express haven’t accused those taking part of being Trotskyite wreckers hell-bent on sending the country back to the Dark Ages (not the actual Dark Ages, the 1970s ones, when people were forced to burn the dead for heat)?
For fans, the referee is the keenly studied subject of ridicule, a moving totem in black at which to hurl insults and 2ps. Nothing is more amusing than when he falls over, in the same way that nothing is more amusing for a three-year-old than an adult blowing a raspberry. So the idea of having to support them because of political reasons is a bit like that moment when you grow older and start to see that your teachers weren’t actually bad people (or, at least, you begin to regret flicking your fountain pen at their blouse when their back was turned for the 37th time; the other 36 were fine).
As always with anything serious like moral dilemmas, it’s best to make a joke of it all. To that end, I’ve been imagining what a picket line of Scottish referees would look like. Firstly, they’d all be in garish full kit, occasionally stopping to jokingly book one another for knocking over the stack of foam tea cups.
Other officials would be scrawling tiny slogans into their books, causing cars to drive dangerously close as they strained to read the words ‘Honk if you support our claim to not get shouted at in the face by Neil Lennon as defined by the Human Rights Act 1998’.
Around a barrel of fire, Dougie McDonald and Willie Collum would stand rubbing their hands together and occasionally blowing for imaginary free-kicks or sending bypassing pram-pushing mothers to the stands.
I am concerned about the impact on tonight’s Stramash book launch, of course. I’ve already had a number of call-offs and am hoping the SFA have plans to send in a group of mystery foreign guests. But would that make me a scab? Nothing is certain any more. Pass me the fingerless gloves, Dougie.
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