Mike Quirke: We’ve turned refs into traffic cops without the speed guns

I was at a club game a couple of weeks back where, almost from the throw-in, the referee assumed the role of main protagonist.

This guy was like one of those gunslingers from the old western movies. He somehow managed to draw ire from every angle for his random distribution of what seemed like the most lethal weapon hanging from his holster — his black card.

I stopped counting after the fourth one because the game had descended into such a farce. What was a black for one incident was just a common foul or a yellow for other similar cases. In a game lacking any real bite, players and supporters from both sides began to lose all patience and were left seething at the inconsistent application of the rules by the man in the middle.