Rangers icon came up against a particularly humourless ref at Ibrox
Being a referee is one of the most thankless tasks in football.
Get a big call right and you might get a ‘He’s got that spot on’ from the co-commentator. And that’s just in the tiny fraction of matches that are shown live.
Get it wrong and you’re pilloried by spectators (at least in pre-Covid times), harangued by players, called out by pundits and subjected to thousands of tweets that range from bad photoshops to genuine threats from people who also tweeted ‘#BeKind’ earlier that day.
Only a heart of stone could fail to have some empathy, but there are occasions when they really don’t help themselves.
‘The worst refereeing decision in Scottish football history’ is quite a high bar to clear, but Dougie Smith cleared it by some margin on this day 25 years ago.
On December 30, 1995, Smith made comfortably the most ridiculous call since referees first set foot on Scottish pitches.
During Rangers’ 7-0 win over Hibs at Ibrox, Smith dropped his yellow card. Paul Gascoigne picked it up and ran towards the referee, before pretending to book the official.
Instead of laughing and giving it a ‘What you like, Paul Gascoigne’ response like you or I would, the po-faced official showed Gascoigne the same yellow card that had just been returned to him.
It was a decision so absurd, so uncalled for and so utterly humourless that even Hibs players could be seen appealing on the Rangers midfielder’s behalf.
A bemused Jock Brown said in his commentary: “Well, I have to say, I think there’s a little lack of humour there.
“I can’t really understand that. It was a light-hearted moment and I can see no disrespect or show of dissent there.
“Gordon Durie’s making that point, but Gascoigne, remarkably, has been booked.”
Smith went up the tunnel at half-time to the sound of boos from supporters, with Brown adding: “I think the referee’s suffered from a lack of a sense of humour there.
“There was no malice in that, I thought, but referee Smith saw it differently and that’s why he’s getting such treatment.”
Almost as amusing as Gascoigne pretending to dish out the yellow was Smith reaching into his back pocket for his yellow card to book the player, before realising he already had it in his hand.
The Rangers number eight went on to score a superb solo goal for Walter Smith’s side in the second half.
Gascoigne wasn’t a player renowned for his restraint and subtlety, so you have to commend him for not celebrating in Smith’s face and earning his second yellow.
Would probably have been worth it to be fair.
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