ANDY DAVIS, the assistant referee whose intervention secured Rangers a last-minute penalty at Tynecastle last month and sparked a controversy about bias among match officials, last night broke his silence and proclaimed his innocence in the whole affair.

Davis, a policeman from Glasgow, has repeatedly been accused of being a Rangers supporter since the Tynecastle match, which Rangers won 2-1.

Two days later Hearts called for an SFA inquiry into the "integrity" of the decision, and Davis has remained the subject of various rumours about his alleged Rangers leanings.

Last night, the FIFA-listed assistant referee said he'd finally had enough. "I am not a Rangers fan and I have never held a Rangers season-ticket in my life, " said Davis. "With all this still going on, I'd like to state that categorically. I find it sad that the whole thing keeps rumbling on."

In the last few days, the SFA have been fighting a rearguard campaign, trying to protect the integrity of their match officials as the controversy has raged on. Davis, however, has rarely been immune from conspiracy theories since Tynecastle, with stories continuing to sprout about his allegiance to Rangers, which he adamantly denies.

"I find it shocking that all these allegations are still going on, " said Davis. "Some [Hearts] supporters are making statements of no substance, they are just leaping to conclusions. It's sad that it's still rumbling on like this. You'd think by now that it might have died a death, but it hasn't.

"It has been terrible for me.

First you had Hearts demanding their appeal. Then you had the SFA's general purposes committee having to postpone their [disrepute] decision over Hearts at the request of the club itself. Now you have various supporters groups casting further aspersions without any evidence whatsoever.

Where is it going to end?"

Davis said he had been personally abused over the saga, including one supporters' internet site which had carried details of where he lives.

Because of the affair, despite being a FIFA-grade assistant referee, Davis' career as a match official may also be in danger of stalling unless the SFA manage to quell the controversy.

While protesting his innocence, Davis said he had always followed football.

"I'm like a lot of the guys:

I've always enjoyed football, " hesaid, referring to fellow match officials. "But if you want the truth, it was junior and amateur football clubs I followed in the main, mostly because I've been involved in a few of them."

Asked again if he was a Rangers fan, Davis replied:

"No." He added: "I repeat, I've never held a season-ticket at Ibrox in my life. I don't know where all this comes from. I think it has reached a stage where people now believe what they want to believe."

Davis has always maintained that the intervention he made at Tynecastle on March 2, when he flagged for a foul by Hearts' Lee Miller on Rangers' Sotirios Kyrgiakos, has repeatedly been the subject of misinterpretation. According to the TV evidence available, the decision seemed to be flawed, as Kyrgiakos was seen on the footage to throw himself theatrically through the air.

Davis, though, stated the following day that the foul he had flagged for in fact occurred a moment earlier, when Miller had been pulling the Greek defender's shirt inside the penalty area. The infringement, said Davis, was not caught by the TV cameras.

Hearts had their call for an inquiry thrown out, and this week were due to face their own SFA trial for bringing the game into disrepute. The Tynecastle club subsequently asked the SFA for a delay in order to enhance their defence.