Refereeing stats

When @fitzpas posted the stats below, I got a bit excited about them, partly as they matched my worldview



However, when I thought more about it, I'm not sure it was really reliable. Both the graphs are related to the number of red cards, and the number of red cards in each case is a very small number. Two more sendings off would entirely change the nature of the graph. The sample size for sendings off is too small to be conclusive - it might be a sign that refs are going easy on Rangers, or it might be a statistical anomaly.

So I decided to process the data from the year before to see if stood up to scrutiny. Also added some new metrics, for example for each team i also processed data for the team playing against that team. So Celtic's opponents are the all the other teams in the league, but just in their games against Celtic. I also added stats for all home teams and all away teams, and, because the rest of Scotland go on about it, the combined stats for the "old firm" and their opponents.

Here's a league table sorted by fouls per red card



the first thing to point out is that Falkirk had no sendings off, so though I artificially made it 1000 to keep my spreadsheet happy, technically their rating is "infinity". In general, the stats are all over the place. It takes Aberdeen 47 fouls to get a sending off, and Hamilton
507. If referees were 10 times stricter with Aberdeen than Hamilton, we would know about it.

So I think this stat has little practical value. The only possible exceptions are that home teams have to do a lot more fouling to get a man sent off than away teams. This can be backed up because cumulatively there is a lot more data to back that up. To a lesser extent you could argue that there is no evidence that the old firm combined are treated more leniently than their opponents, as there is quite a lot of data for that too.

here's the league table sorted by Yellows Per Red. Again, Falkirk have infinity, and the other results are similar to the previous table, so I'm not going to go in to that in detail.



Now on to Fouls per Yellow



the advantages of this sorting is that there are a lot more yellows than reds, so there is enough data to suggest that it might be reliable. One thing I would point out is that Celtic's opponents can commit over 10 fouls before it leads to a bookings. With Rangers' opponents that is cut by a third. The stats for Celtic and Rangers are similar to each other, but the way their opponents are treated are significantly different. People were also slow to get booked in Motherwell; both Motherwell and their opponents. The home team are slightly favoured over the away team, and Aberdeen are not treated particularly well (though there opponents are treated in a neutral way).

The strength of this measure is the amount of data available in one year, but the downside is it has less impact on the outcome of the game. The number of sendings off would be more significant, but you would have to process about 10 years of data to make it reliable, which I haven't done.

Neil Lennon, racism, and me

Back in March, the BBC ran this story in the aftermath of "that" Celtic-Rangers game http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-glasgow-west-12659077 along with front page headlines in many papers. It seemed odd to me that the police would publicise unsubstantiated allegations in this way, especially when the defendant was the victim of death threats. This case seemed particularly odd as the complainants had already published their "evidence" on youtube and it was clearly farcical. Maybe this level of exposure was normal; I'm not a media person or a police spokesman.

Around the same time, the RST were given the freedom of the BBC to speculate as to what other crimes Neil Lennon may have committed when no-one was looking. This monologue was only interrupted when Paul McBride joined the programme and pointed out that the man they were impugning was at the centre of death threats (this was before they were known to be "viable") and that maybe that should be given some attention. The latest batch of suspect devices had hardly merited a mention in the media, and I was told this was because it had happened before and it was old news.

The media did at least report that Diouf was distancing himself from the allegations of racism, but there the matter was left. There was no follow up to say whether the Celtic manager was guilty or not, and no statement from the police as to the results of their much heralded investigation.

(Lest my interest be considered too partisan, I think the same is true of Steve Jennings of Motherwell who denied allegations of betting fraud. Those allegations were widely reported on and then forgotten without his name being cleared. I don't know what organisation is responsible for that investigation, so i don't know who should be pestered).

Months later the Lennon racism situation had still not been cleared up and various internet "facts" and grown in the vacuum, such as if Celtic didn't sack Lennon, Rangers were going to produce proof he wasn't born in Hawaii. So I approached a few journalists on twitter asking about that and the Jennings case, but got nowhere. Eventually I contacted police spokesman and pillar of the establishment Rob Shorthouse, who was very helpful and looked into it for me and then released a statement to the press. Hence the story in today's Daily Record (which I'm not going to link you to as it's still the Daily Record) clearing up that Lennon was not guilty of racially abusing Diouf. I know we all knew that but, I think it's important to have the police put it to bed.

Here are some quotes from the article:
Strathclyde Police: "The matter was investigated and reported to the fiscal. The file was returned marked 'no proceedings' due to a lack of evidence."
Paul McBride QC [PMQC]: "This has been a waste of time and money. The alleged victim didn't even make a complaint"
Sources close to Diouf branded the claims "nonsense".

Why does Neil Lennon attract more trouble than Martin O'Neill?

Both are from Northern Ireland. Both are from a Catholic background. Both managed Celtic. So why does Neil Lennon get it in the neck more than Martin O'Neill did, or indeed Anton Rogan did?

Those abusing Neil Lennon most often cite his abrasive nature. Certainly, he's not a shrinking violet. He was more of an abrasive player than Jackie McNamara or Shaun Maloney. However, he was certainly no more abrasive than say Robbie Savage, Dennis Wise, or Darren Jackson. Not to mention Diouf, McCullouch, and Novo. I can't think of a player that was seriously injured by Lennon during his playing career. In his managerial career he has sometimes been outspoken. Again, is this any more the case than with Ferguson, Wenger, or Mourinho? Smith? I think not. He is occasionally abrasive but not unusually so. Not enough to attract the kind of vitriol he does at matches, never mind the death threats.

I suspect that the main reason Lennon and O'Neill are treated differently is that Lennon played for Celtic and Northern Ireland at the same time. Lennon was booed by Northern Ireland fans, and then Hearts fans decided to follow suit partly out of their own bigotry, and partly out of a childish desire to boo along as if they were at a pantomime. Soon almost every team in Scotland were booing a man they hadn't booed before, and who hadn't been booed in his time in England. It's harder to randomly single out a manager (do you boo a substitution?) but there was also never the catalyst of O'Neill being booed at Windsor park because he never played for Celtic. Football is often blighted by copycat crimes; when there is one pitch invasion, there is often another the next week. coin-throwing begets coin-throwing, laser pens beget laser pens. The whole Lennophobia campaign started out as an anti-Catholic anti-Celtic anti-Irish copycat "lark".

The other main difference between O'Neill and Lennon is that Lennon is more defiant in the face of bigotry than O'Neill was. But only slightly. Many people in Scotland think that when Lennon is abused he should put his head down and walk away in order to keep the public peace. By challenging fans who rain abuse on his, he is seen as throwing oil on the fire. While Martin O'Neill didn't tackle these things head on as often (possibly because he wasn't faced with them as often), he wasn't entirely meek in the face of confrontation. In 2004 he marched Neil Lennon himself over to the Celtic fans at Ibrox after "sectarian and racist abuse" and lambasted for it by many in the Scottish media. (You can read Jim Traynor's response here; http://kerrydalestreet.co.uk/topic/8213827/48/). The " irrepressible Taig" as Roddy Forsyth refers to it in his criticism of the Scottish bigot's mindset is unacceptable to many in Scotland and when anyone shows defiance to their world view the victim becomes the cause.

So, why was Anton Rogan not treated the same way as Lennon? He was booed by Northern Ireland fans, but this didn't really spread. Partly, this is because Anton Rogan wasn't as good. Beyond that though, they played in different eras. Partly this is because Lennon played in at a time when the newspapers were in the habit of inventing bogeymen and then telling us all to hate them. Or in Jade Goody's case, hatethemthenlovethemthenhatethemthenlovethem. more importantly, though Neil Lennon played and managed in an era where internet forums were used to whip up hatred, and in recent times have come to be seen as mainstream. Do you remember the first time you looked at followfollow? I don't really go in for football forums; there's too much reading through "we should play a 3-2-3-1-7 formation and sign Drogba and play him in the hole" nonsense. When I was first pointed towards followfollow i was genuinely gobsmacked. There were phases of shock, amusement and disgust, but above all bewilderment. It didn't seem to reflect the country I lived in. While Rangers always seemed to have a sectarian basis the rest of Scottish society didn't. I was called a fenian in the street before I knew what one was, but in terms of bigotry that actually held me back in life I can only think of one incident in a golf club, which was soon fixed when we complained. I played football with Rangers supporters; I worked with Rangers supporters; I was friends with Rangers supporters - hardly any of whom exhibited any sign of extremism. Followfollow was awash with delusional hatred and death threats. It was, however, surely the lunatic fringe of Rangers supporters.

Nowadays FollowFollow and similar organisations are courted by the media. They are invited on the radio, and many opinion pieces in newspapers look as though they have FollowFollow as the target market. Extremism has become mainstream and legitimatised. It's against this backdrop that Lennon is different from Rogan. The hatred and fear of Lennon has been whipped up by sections of the media as well as fans groups to the extent that when a man is sent bombs in the post or assaulted on the sideline thousands celebrate. Openly.

The question is not really about how Lennon is different from anyone, but how we are different from a civilised society.