Andrew Smith: Line between obscurity and notoriety can be a thin one

PUTTING your footballing life on the line by running it, can, as now former SFA assistant Steven Craven would testify, exact a price not worth paying. Whatever caused Craven to quit football, he has become a victim of a vicious blame game.

It doesn't have to be that way, as fellow former SFA assistant Wilson Irvine will testify. His name may not be instantly recognisable. That, though, is perhaps a measure of how astute proved the judgment of one of Scotland's most highly regarded officials. The 51-year-old was placed among Fifa's top 30 dedicated assistants in the early part of the millennium. Before retiring in 2004, the Rutherglen-based assistant operated in more than 40 countries. He officiated at international, Champions League and Uefa Cup encounters, and has the medals to show for his efforts in the 2002 Uefa Super Cup final and the 2003 Interto Cup final. On the domestic scene, he applied his abilities to ten Old Firm games.

"Stevie (Craven] will have his reasons for doing what he has done, but I am of the belief that you solider on," says Irvine, health and safety officer with MOD suppliers Wincanton Defence. "If Scottish referees don't want to do our games, they will go to someone else. If you are good enough you will not make mistakes that will cause you problems, or if they do happen they will be seen as genuine enough. The bottom line is that decision not to give a penalty (to Celtic, against Dundee United] was right, however it came about."

Irvine knows all about being brought in to officiate a derby because it became too hot to handle for nationals amid charges of corruption. He remembers bricks and stones raining down on him, despite the police and bodyguards assigned to him and the other members of Hugh Dallas' team for the 2001 Cairo derby between Zamalek and Al-Ahly. "That was extreme, and with 100,000-plus supporters it put that Old Firm game in the shade," he says.

Irvine says he never suffered any abuse that made him want to give up, though he refuses to dwell on the occasion that resulted in him receiving a threatening phonecall. Coming through the junior ranks and running the line in lower division games was when he was conscious of threats and insults.

"I remember snooker balls being thrown at me in the juniors and the same guys at a Third Division ground always giving it 'I could be your da'. But when it came to big games, I was so focused, I concentrated on my section of the pitch and shut out everything else. People would ask about incidents in the other half afterwards and I would have no idea about them."

When error did occur, his duties weighing heavily on him. "It is a sad, sad, lonely place when you make a mistake," Irvine says.He relates how his biggest came when in the "gloom" of the San Siro in 2002, he mistakenly thought Bernd Schneider had headed in a last-gasp equaliser for Bayer Leverkusen in the Champions League against Inter. "I wondered head…hand, head…hand, turned that over then decided on head. As I did I instantly knew I had called it wrong, and Hugh, to his credit, over-ruled me, booked the player.

"When you had a bad day you say to yourself, 'What am I doing here?' But that is the same in any job, in any walk of life. Being a referee allowed me to fulfil the dream of stepping out at Hampden on cup final day. It was a massive buzz, an adrenalin-fuelled experience, as close to being a player as I could get. The times I thought I wasn't being fair to my family related to being away from home so much and missing out time with them rather than anything else."

The popular belief is that the era of 24-camera live games and 24-hour news has made it impossible for officials - especially for games involving the Glasgow clubs. Irvine has another theory. "The fact there is little to choose between the teams leads to every decision being blown-up."

Flak is aimed at referees for perceived bias. Irvine has a pragmatic view of such accusations. "Why would I help Rangers or Celtic when they wouldn't help me if I then copped any flak? They couldn't care a jot about me or how my name, my credibility, my family were affected."

Anyway, he says, when it came to fearful afternoons, Glasgow came second to Edinburgh. "I think it is to do with the fact that at Tynecastle and Easter Road the supporters are right on top of you. I think they can be more over the top, too, and I felt intimidated in the Edinburgh derby in a way I didn't in the Glasgow one. I never felt more concerned about running the line in a Hibs and Hearts game than in an early live Sky game at Easter Road. A man convicted of murder had escaped from Saughton prison and an hour before kick-off the chief constable appeared in our dressing room to say the man was either going to handcuff himself to the goalpost or Superglue himself to the referee. I pointed out that since the main stand side which was the only one not covered by a fence it was me that had most to worry about. I was apprehensive that day. The guy did try to get on as well, but they managed to stop him."