Football would be much improved if refs enforced the rules properly

Since the 1980s there have been frequent changes and amendments to the laws. With each one coaches and managers try to devise ways to get round the laws.

In my opinion what is needed is for referees to enforce the laws which are there.

First of all, the laws state that the referee’s decisions are final as regards the outcome of a match. When players used to disagree with me about a decision I had made, I used to tell them that they were entitled to their opinion, but that I had made the decision as I saw it. They were free to think that I had got it wrong, but they had to accept it.

Referees can clamp down on dissent, time-wasting and taking free kicks and throw-ins from the wrong place by applying the laws as they stand. They can caution players guilty of dissent or award a throw-in to the other team if the original throw-in is taken from the wrong place. By clamping down quickly on these offences, the players soon get the message.

The issue of handball is a major talking point and, as I see it, the current guidelines are not helpful. The laws make it clear which part of the arm has to touch the ball to make it a potential offence, but all too often penalty kicks have been awarded when there has been no deliberate attempt to handle the ball.

Finally, I wish that referees would talk to players and team officials. I hate seeing a yellow or red card being brandished in someone’s face. When I refereed the practice was to draw the offending player aside, ask for his name, note it in the notebook and then display the red or yellow card, telling him what his offence has been. This procedure calmed many a potentially serious situation.

Personally I would scrap VAR, go back to the laws as they were in the 1980s and get the referees to enforce them properly.

AB Crawford, East Kilbride.

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Mud-slinging on abortion

I WRITE in reply to the letters of March 1 and 2 responding to my letter of February 29 on the matter of abortion clinic buffer zones, though more widely on the public provision of abortion services in the UK and the right to protest about same. Unfortunately the tone and style of the replies neatly demonstrate the point I was trying to make vis-a-vis the difficulty of engaging meaningfully with those of an opposite view on such a weighty matter.

I think it ought to go without saying that sticking to facts and relying on science, reason and appeals to natural justice are routes to meaningful dialogue and a more fruitful search for some common ground.

With that in mind, therefore, I would like to address a few of the assertions made in those replies. The first being to do with the womb being the only option for a pre-born baby. That was precisely my point, to which I should perhaps have added that it should therefore be the safest place for it to be, rather than the most dangerous.

The second was the frankly bizarre accusation that abortion clinic protesters are hypocrites who lack compassion for living children, or others blighted by poverty. I'm afraid this is just mud-slinging and barely deserving of a response. Purely on the matter of abortion, the protesters are displaying compassion towards both pregnant women and their pre-born infants.

Finally, there was an insinuation that as a man I am ipso facto "not qualified to make a judgment on the issue of abortion", regarding which I wondered how qualified the then 95%-male UK Parliament was in 1967 to vote on the Abortion Act, or indeed the 100%-male US Supreme Court to rule on the matter of Roe v Wade.

Perhaps it would help if it could be agreed that there are actually three parties involved in any pregnancy: a mother, a father and a pre-born baby, none of whom should have a life-ending veto over the rights of the others.

Jim Kearns, Paisley.

The hole truth

I DON’T often drive in Glasgow during busy times, but I did so last weekend. The experience was worse than driving in London.

First of all, the volume of traffic was awesome. Why the Chancellor felt the need to freeze fuel duty I do not know, as demonstrably there is no cost of living crisis on the part of the motoring public. Each traffic light cycle seemed to last for about five minutes, unsurprisingly leading to some drivers deciding to treat the red light as advisory. Finally, there were potholes everywhere.

I suggest that Glasgow City Council should pay £250 to each car owner residing in the city and environs as a contribution towards vehicle repairs.

Scott Simpson, Bearsden.

Glasgow's Lord Provost, Jacqueline McLaren (Image: Newsquest)

• I HAD a wry smile on reading Neil Mackay's article about the cost of the installation of two fancy lampposts outside the home of the Lord Provost in Glasgow's West End, she who is an SNP councillor for Milton ("Lord Provost really needs to think again", The Herald, March 7) I'm sure it was a mere coincidence that the pavement area in front of the whole block was completely resurfaced. I guess it must have simply had too many dangerous potholes.

Isobel Frize, Glasgow.

Shah things

THE letter from lore-abiding reader P Davidson (The Herald, March 5) on the subject of English as she is misspoke, reminded me of a Glasgow Herald correspondent's remark in 1979 that though he had just learned from Radio 4 that there was no longer a Shar of Iwan, we would continue to be told when there was a likelihood of Shaha ova the Ken Goams.

Robin Dow, Rothesay.