Saturday 22 September 2012

Bathgate 0-4 Clydebank


22nd September 2012

Emirates Scottish Junior Cup round 1


Ever wondered what Rod Serling is doing these days?  You know, the guy who used to introduce all those weird and wonderful stories on The Twilight Zone TV series.  Well, ponder no more, because I ran across him this afternoon.  He has shaved his head and now officiates at junior football matches. 

And he keeps alive the spirit of his previous job by regularly producing bafflingly obscure and singularly weird refereeing decisions.  I could have sworn I heard that scary de-de-de-de Twilight Zone music wafting across Creamery Park more than once during proceedings.

This afternoon for example, we saw two of the most innocuous challenges you will ever see, rewarded with straight reds for the perpetrators.  The red shown to the Clydebank centre-half was particularly spooky, as he must have felt he had just made one of the best last-ditch goal-preventing challenges he will ever make in his career.

Also, earlier in the game, a perfectly timed tackle by Bathgate's Hogg (or maybe Lieper) had similarly received the Serling treatment, this one giving the visitors a penalty for their fourth goal.  Thankfully, none of these silly decisions had any real bearing on the contest as a whole, as Clydebank were well over the horizon by half-time.  Deservedly so.

A perfectly executed free-kick after only 4 minutes had been added to with a Bathgate o.g. and an (other, perfectly legitimate) penalty to allow the visitors to turn around 3-0 up.  Bathgate’s second-half display was a bit better although, to be fair, they never looked like scoring.  Clydebank, for their part, were in pipe’n’slippers mode after the break. 

In fact it was only the Ref’s antics which kept proceedings remotely interesting.   

































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