Stevo doesn’t think James Wilson should have been sent off and is sure officiaiting is affecting modern players’ mentalities
There is a saying I heard as a player I will never forget. It went: If you play for that badge on the front of the jersey, the fans will remember the name on the back.
It lived with me through my career. But I’ll tell you one thing, I couldn’t use the mantra properly now.
And when I see what players are being red carded and punished for these days, it infuriates me.
There are decisions being made which actually beggar belief and it’s making me both angry and also sad for the Scottish game.
I heard what Neil Lennon said the other day about the standard of officiating in this country being abysmal and he’s bang on.
Not only is it wasting matches, it’s also, in my opinion, affecting the commitment of players and that just isn’t fair on fans.
Seeing the red card dished out to Hearts’ James Wilson last weekend didn’t just annoy me, it got me thinking about the mindset of a modern-day player because, pure and simple, it has to have a detrimental effect. It must do.
Listen, I’m not going to hide. As a player, I would have gone into some tackles looking to leave one on someone. I’ve done it. It was part of the game in my day.
I’m not advocating people kicking lumps out of each other. That’s just daft talk. But there’s a line between stamping out brutality and not understanding the game which results in punishing players for no reason.
You have to be able to tell the difference and, quite frankly, our officials are incapable of doing so and it has to affect a player’s thinking.
Put in this way, if a ball bounced now between me and an opposition player when I was playing, even if it was 70-30 in his favour, I was still going into it.
Now? Even if it was a 50-50 battle? I’d think twice and probably go in half-hearted and the truth is that punters can see that. Referees just don’t understand that.
I was retrospectively red carded for a tackle on James McPake during an Edinburgh Derby and I got a two-match suspension which ended up with me at Hampden.
When I got called up and sat at a Hampden panel, it was a lawyer, a schoolteacher and someone else.
The lawyer boy said to me: I don’t really think there was any need for that tackle. I said: I’ll stop you right there, have you ever played in a Hearts versus Hibs derby?
He said no. I said: Well, you don’t understand that, if I pull out of that tackle, there’s 20,000 fans seeing it. There is no way I can. I understand my responsibility to the Hearts fans and I’m not pulling out of that tackle, exactly the same way as James wasn’t pulling out.
But the way the game is now, you can’t afford to go all-in and that just isn’t right.
Look, the red card given to Motherwell’s Kofi Balmer in their game at Kilmarnock was beyond discussion. That was just embarrassingly bad as he was merely kicking a ball away.
You saw the Everton boy James Tarkowski against Liverpool last week. I felt he tried to do his opponent, but that was totally different with Balmer. If a ref or someone in the VAR room can’t distinguish the difference, then we’d be as well giving up.
Wilson’s was a different type again. He was going full-blooded into a tackle. I get that obviously there’s a black and white, but, back in the day, you would understand that he’s not that kind of player.
He’s not intentionally going to hurt anyone. When we were playing, that wouldn’t even be a yellow card. I couldn’t believe it when I saw it.
There has to be some space for combative stuff without constant fear of a red for being a split-second out.
Do you know one of the best lessons I ever learned? We played St Mirren at Love Street and I nutmegged Andy Millan. I was 18 years old. I went “megs.”
He came up to the back of me soon afterwards and he said to me: Next time you touch the ball, I’m going to break your back.
Sure enough, next time I touched the ball, he came straight through the back of me and nailed me. That would probably have been a sending-off these days, but, at the end of the game, he came up to me and he said: You are a good player, but mind your tongue as you are only 18.
Do you know from that day all the way through my career, when I nutmegged people after that, I was never cheeky again or anything like that again. Just out of respect.
The point of that story is you played hard. You dished a bit out and you took a bit. You shook hands at the end. Refs can’t get a handle on this.
I understand the whistler police out there saying: Oh, it’s black and white. Well it’s not.
For one, Wilson’s wasn’t even a sending off. And two, you’ve got to understand he isn’t that type of player.
Referees just don’t understand and, in turn, they ruin the spectacle because their decisions are forcing players to hold back.
And, if players are holding back, they are cheating fans who are then going to berate them.
Players can’t win and it is something that needs to be sorted and sorted now because our game is being wrecked.
