Amateurs red card ref after missing big game

Published on Tuesday 16 October 2007 12:11

AN amateur football team has called foul on their Greek referee after he forced them to miss most of Scotland's Euro 2008 win over Ukraine.

Leith Athletic and Slamannan FC expected, through the usual "gentleman's agreement", to be allowed to kick off their Scottish Cup second round tie earlier in the day.

But the referee forced them to start the match on Leith Links - which Athletic won 4-1 - at 2pm on Saturday as scheduled.

After the game, both sides ran straight into a nearby pub, just in time to see James McFadden seal the memorable victory

A spokesman for the Leith club said: "It was pretty disappointing as both clubs had agreed to bring the kick off forward but the referee refused to let us. He didn't give us any reason as he didn't speak very good English. He was Greek and he didn't seem to understand just how important the Euro 2008 game was for us. But our priority has to be our own game and, to be fair to the lads, they just got on with it and managed to keep our recent good form going."