RateTheRef

Still no sign of Willie Collum in the Champions League despite some non elite referees picking up games.  Is this a sign that he’s no longer trusted in the UCL?  What does the future hold for him?

Poor refereeing there, no idea why he changes from a penalty to a corner but it causes him to lose complete control.  It’s also surprising as Garcia Aranda  was one of the very top FIFA Officials in his day, refereeing the opening game and also a SF in France 98 as well as games in Euro 2000 and many Champions League appointments.

Interestingly in the more modern game incidents like this seem much rarer, where as in late 90s early 00s it seemed to happen more often where the referee would lose complete control.

I seem to remember a few involving the Spaniard Lopez Nieto, French referee Giles Vessiere, his fellow country man Claude Colombo and the Swiss referee with the dodgy watch… Dieter Schoch (in a match involving Aston Villa if I’m not mistaken)

On the subject of FIFA referees from Scotland, is there any referee who has a realistic chance of making say the 2024 Euros or 2026 WC? It seems to have been a while since any Scottish referee has really got to that level or done regular knockout stage CL games and so on.

Willie Collum refereeed at Euro 2016 and Craig Thomson at Euro 2012.  We’ve not had a World Cup referee since Hugh Dallas in 2002. 

Collum had been fairly regular in the CL and handled a QF in 2018 and also a Europa SF in the same year but since then has had a bit of a decline in appointments.  This was partly because of the lack of VAR in Scotland and for a while UEFA weren’t giving CL games to anyone without VAR in their domestic leagues but also a bit of a dip in form from Willie and also some high profile errors.  However Collum does remain an UEFA Elite for the moment.


Nick Walsh has been making excellent progress and has probably passed Collum as the top referee in Scotland but remains in the UEFA first category, it is very unlikely he will be at either Euro 2024 or WC 26.  He’s only 32 at the moment so potentially could make Euro 2028 and WC 2030 if he keeps progressing the way that he has been.

Walsh is certainly doing well domestically, and has had a decent number of outings in the conference league over the last two seasons.  However I can’t see him being moved to elite anytime soon since he’s not even handled a Europa League game yet.  Maybe Collum will get another year at elite to give Walsh some time to get there.

Quote from: TheThingFromLewes on Sat 26 Feb 2022 08:28

Quote from: Scottish Ref on Fri 25 Feb 2022 23:25

Another excellent performance from Simon Hooper.

Random fact, noticed that he used the ‘yellow book’ that A&H used to supply instead of a standard card.  Not seen one of those in action for 15+ years!

I guess that book he uses has multiple sheets of paper inside or is it just one of two that are slid in as required?

I’ve not seen those old books around and are not familiar with their internal components!

If it is the one I used to use, there was a double page for each game, with room for all the necessary information. The first "leaf" would reveal a double sided yellow card to show and the last "leaf" had the same thing but in red.  Maybe he bought a job lot many years ago!

Its not the one like the Steve Lodge notebook.

The one Hooper was using is just a standard match wallet, but it’s made of yellow plastic instead of standard black.  The inside has sleeves to tuck match cards or paper under.

Quote from: Scottish Ref on Tue 19 Oct 2021 20:50

Quote from: JCFC on Tue 19 Oct 2021 15:49

I recall that during his time as a Scottish League referee A D Fleming was listed as coming from Banknock, which would appear to be between Kilsyth and Denny.

AD Fleming, (Drew Fleming) was originally from Banknock but due to his work with the Civil Service also lived for periods of time in Aberdeen, Edinburgh and Glasgow.

Sadly Drew recently passed away and his funeral took place yesterday.

Are you the same Scottish Ref that used to post so enjoyably on the old site? If so, welcome back
 If not, welcome anyway!

The same Scottish Ref from the old site.  It’s good to be back!