WILLIE COLLUM, the referee who will take charge of Saturday's Scottish Cup final between Inverness Caledonian Thistle and Falkirk, spoke yesterday of the hurt he feels at getting decisions wrong, admitting he sometimes looked at TV evidence "300 or 400 times" at home to see if an error looked any better.
Collum is one of Scotland's leading referees and was handed a Champions League quarter-final tie by UEFA earlier this season. But he has still felt the wrath of criticism around domestic matches he has handled.
In January, Collum showed red cards to Motherwell's Stephen McManus and St Mirren's Kenny McLean which were rescinded in the space of seven days by the SFA's judicial panel.
"Our decisions are analysed to death on TV," he said. "As refs, we try our best. But referees make mistakes, I've made mistakes, and we try to learn from them."
Yesterday at Hampden was a rare occasion when a grade one Scottish referee was given free rein in front of the media to speak his mind on certain issues. Saturday will be Collum's second Scottish Cup final, after he took charge of 2013 showpiece event at Hampden.
Collum admitted that he would be willing to speak more freely to the media, but that the SFA's 'Whistleblower' experiment of five years ago - when referees could post comments after matches - had become a routine exercise in saying sorry.
"There are positives and negatives to [referees speaking out]," he said. "It was trialled in England, if you remember, and it was not good at all. I think the media would only want to pick up on the negativity.
"I also don't know about speaking to someone right after the match, when your emotions are raw. But maybe in time it will come, but we need to weigh up previous experiences.
"I was involved in the Whistleblower idea that was run on the [SFA] website. It really just became a place for referees to apologise all the time. I don't really think it served its purpose."
Collum also claimed that the media played a part in depicting referees in a poor light, with their emphasis, he said, on negative comment.
"I do my best to avoid the phone-ins," he added. "I think you guys [the press] have a part to play as well. We often hear of the media making comments when they don't know the actual laws, or what the referee would be thinking at the time. Maybe we all need to be educated on different things within the game.
"Sometimes I think the media at times only want to focus on the negative with referees. It can be a bit harsh. But I think referees are blamed for things, no matter where you go in the world. It's just a part of the job - you just need to accept it."
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article