Honest Mistakes 25/26 - Week One

Celtic may not have any new signings, but we do, as the Yorkshire Whistler signs on for another campaign.

The Yorkshire Whistler's return proves that at the Huddersfield Breakdown, we are more effective at getting signings over the line than Celtic.

I am very grateful he is willing to volunteer his time to delve into the fantastical world of Scottish football refereeing despite increasing work and refereeing commitments. I suspect it is some light relief from the continuing travails at his beloved Sheffield Wednesday.

Such a project is strengthened by having more data, and this will be the fifth season of his independent and expert analysis. Here is the summary up to the end of the fourth season.

He will be asked to assess contentious calls in games involving Celtic and The Rangers. Contentious calls include penalties awarded or not, sendings off or tackles that may fall within the parameters of one, goals allowed and disallowed. It will not include every foul nor goals deemed offside by Virtual Assistant Referee (VAR) unless it is some of Andrew Dallas’s wonky lines, or David Dickinson’s made-up ones.

For now, we will continue to assess games involving the major Glasgow sides. I am aware of the shifting dynamics in Scottish football and that, if we are to believe Tony Bloom, and I recommend you take him seriously, there may be a new disruptor in Heart of Midlothian.

The issue in Scottish football remains the unwillingness of the Scottish Football Association (SFA) to modernise and professionalise refereeing services, and specifically their refusal to be seen to be doing their utmost to mitigate the risks posed by unconscious bias, present in all of us.

Furthermore, the predominant culture of the SFA, manifest in refereeing, is clear to see for all, as evidenced by many events over the last 75 years of the game.

Exhaustive study of public data relating to refereeing outcomes in Scotland has found consistent statistically significant evidence of favourable outcomes for one club, The Rangers, over all others in the topflight. There is some evidence that Willie Collum’s drive for transparency and public explanation has helped to moderate behaviour, if not attitudes. That needs to be seen as a persisting trend in contrast to the four years of Crawford Allan. Last season’s outcomes looked “normal”. Which isn’t to say the standard of the part-time referees has appreciably improved, just that the pain was equally spread around, which is all we can ask. If you are going to be incompetent, at least impact all sides broadly equally.

Heart of Midlothian have been as much a victim of these refereeing anomalies as any other Premier League side. And so, for now, we will continue to focus on Celtic and The Rangers as regards this analysis.

And so, to week one!

03/08/25 Celtic vs St Mirren

Incident 1

Referee: Don Robertson

Game Minute: 62^nd

Score At Time: 0-0

Incident: Ball hits Gogic in the box

Outcome: No decision following VAR review.

Evidence: Provided

Yorkshire Whistler Verdict:

Initial infield decision (IOD): No decision

St Mirren defender attempts to clear the ball in a passage of play that sees 5 players all in close proximity to the ball. The clearance clearly catches Gogic on his left hand accidentally, but this doesn’t mean automatically an offence has been committed.

Gogic has the ball blasted at him at every close range and virtually zero reaction time as he attempts to move his body backwards to get out of the way of his teammate’s clearance.

For me, this is a justifiable natural body shape for this particular incident and so does not meet the threshold of a handball offence.

Verdict: CORRECT decision

Expected Points Outcome: No impact

Incident 2

Referee: Don Robertson

Game Minute: 68^th

Score At Time: 0-0

Incident: McGregor scores for Celtic

Outcome: Goal to Celtic overturned by VAR for handball.

Evidence: Celtic 1-0 St Mirren | Luke McCowan’s Strike Seals Victory! | William Hill Premiership

At 2:35

Yorkshire Whistler Verdict:

IOD: Goal awarded but then disallowed after being over turned by VAR review for handball offence

McGregor closes down a clearance by St Mirren number 6, the ball bounces up and catches him accidentally on the elbow before it drops to his left foot and he sweeps the ball him from outside the box.

Clearly accidental but frustratingly for Celtic their captain falls foul of Law 12 around handball that basically states an accidental handball that then sees the same player score immediately after the accidental handball has occurred, must be penalised and a DFK awarded.

If the ball had then gone onto another Celtic player who then scored a goal, it would have stood but because it McGregor who directly scored from the accidental handball, it had to be chalked off.

Verdict: CORRECT decision

Expected Points Outcome: No impact

Summary

My thanks as always to the Yorkshire Whistler.

A solid start to the season for everyone there. Some nice sand dune repeats were obviously completed.

A reminder that, were any decisions deemed to be incorrect, an estimate of the impact on the points each side would have won/lost is made based on the score and the time the incident occurred.

This expected points model is generic and, in Scottish football, if you were to use it to build an expected points table, it would be flawed due to the huge gulf between Celtic, The Rangers and the rest. That is, the chances of Celtic coming back from 0-1 down with ten minutes to go against e.g. Falkirk are probably much higher than the reverse scenario.

However, because we are only assessing two clubs that are, if the press is to be believed, tightly matched, then this matters not provided we treat each side the same, which the model does.

No errors this week, so no side has yet been advantaged/disadvantaged.

Celtic leads by two points after one game.