Not the right day for folk

The Big Chief saw all the shenanigans at Firhill for himself and I

imagine, therefore, will scrutinise the versions of referee Davie Syme

and the supervisor with special interest. It was not a good day to get

things wrong but plenty of folk did.

Davie Syme for a start. The most experienced referee of them all was

in lenient mode all afternoon but Partick Thistle, who eventually lost

1-0, and Hearts were teams in need of tough handling rather than

Davie's avuncular stance. He should have sent off Chic Charnley, who

used an elbow on John Colquhoun, the Hearts forward who was ordered off

for retaliating; he should have given a foul against Gary Mackay before

the Edinburgh team went on to score the only goal; but most of all he

should have clamped down quickly on feuds that developed from the start.

But if the referee erred on the side of forgiveness, the players and

officials had no excuse for the ill will shown on both sides. That

reached a head at half-time when Thistle's assistant manager, Gerry

Collins, and Hearts' longest-serving player, Gary Mackay, almost came to

blows as they headed for the tunnel.

Everybody was playing down the incident later but Mr Farry, I am sure,

will expect to see an official description of the contretemps.

Mackay, normally the most restrained of players, had seemed to be

involved in a personal feud with Charnley from the off, although others,

like Scott Leitch, who was lucky not to be sent off for one foul on the

Thistle man, joined in the fray. Chic, who has tried very hard this

season to keep his excesses under control, was fortunate to escape with

only a yellow card after his first-half display.

Two on-field happenings proved vital, the dismissal of Colquhoun and

the goal scored by Maurice Johnston. Ironically, Colquhoun's departure

worked against Thistle. Until he left, the Tynecastle side had been

using three front players and a positive attitude, with Colquhoun

looking very much the most threatening of their attackers. In the second

half, with a goal advantage, they retreated into almost complete

defence, a blanket barrier which Thistle, even with an extra man, never

looked capable of breaching.

Colquhoun, chairman of the Professional Footballers' Association, is

one of the most disciplined players in the country, who rarely commits a

foul, let alone get sent off. Yet the mean spirit in which this tie was

conducted clearly got to him, too, climaxing in his anger at receiving

an elbow from Charnley as the two challenged for a ball on the

touchline. His own response, when he raised his hands in retaliation,

left Mr Syme with no option but to take out the red card. But it was

impossible to understand how the referee was able to rate Charnley's

offence any less violent and show him only a yellow card.

That upset the Hearts contingent but the referee soon enraged the

other lot, too. He and the stand-side linesman allowed a reckless

looking late tackle by Mackay on Gregg Watson to pass without

admonition, or even a foul. Watson, who stopped playing momentarily,

anticipating the foul, was then caught flat footed as the ball was

whipped back towards Johnston, who needed no invitation to skip past the

Thistle defender before delivering an accurate shot past Craig Nelson.

That was just about that. For most of the second half Thistle had the

ball to themselves until they approached the 18-yard line where Hearts

had set up camp. There was no sign of the subtlety or penetration in the

Jags ranks required to overcome that kind of barrier, at the centre of

which Craig Levein and Neil Berry were outstanding.