Airdrie cry foul as Morton fan replaces linesman

The incident happened when the match referee twisted his ankle after 66 minutes of the match, and had to be replaced by one of his linesmen. A new linesman was then required, and a Morton fan jumped out of the crowd to stand in for the rest of the Second Division match at Cappielow, which ended in a 3-1 win for Morton.

Airdrie allege that at full-time, the replacement linesman was hugged by Morton players.

Jim Ballantyne, the Airdrie chairman, confirmed yesterday: "We have lodged a formal complaint citing four points. The first is that Morton’s tannoy announcement specifically asked for this person and did not ask for a qualified referee.

"The second is that he was in the middle of a group of Morton supporters and jumped out of them wearing a Morton top. He ran the line in front of them and they were chanting his name.

"Thirdly, he came across the pitch and shook hands with some of the Morton players before he took up his duties on the line. And fourthly, at the end of the game, some Morton players came over and hugged him.

"Fortunately he did not have to make any decisions which had any influence on the game and Morton scored three goals while we scored one and we accept that they won the game.

"But can you imagine what would happen if a Celtic fan came out of the crowd to run the line in front of Rangers supporters at an Old Firm game - or the other way round. They would not put up with this and nor should we.

"Our team lost their total focus while all this was going on but my biggest problem was the fear of crowd trouble.

"As chairman, I would be held responsible, and this club could be fined heavily, if Airdrie supporters had reacted badly to all of this. They did not, but this was an incredible state of affairs. I am deeply disturbed about the message this sends out about Scottish football.

"We informed Morton after the game that we would be protesting about this state of affairs. In addition David Thomson, who is one of the Scottish League officials, was at the game and we have spoken to him. We will be calling him as a witness to what happened."

Airdrie manager Sandy Stewart added: "Livelihoods and mortgages depend on games such as this. For someone wearing a Morton strip to come on and to shake hands with Morton players is disgraceful."

It emerged last night that moves to have a fourth official at all SFL games will be raised today following the scenes at Cappielow.

Donald McVicar, referees officer at the SFA, is likely to discuss the matter with SFL secretary Peter Donald. McVicar began his investigation of the incident yesterday, and explained: "The referee supervisor Douglas Hope was present at the game. He is also supervisor for the Renfrewshire region and he knew that one of his registered referees, Chic Kavanagh was at the game. Douglas suggested that he be called, but as he was attending to David Somers [the injured referee] he did not see the other events which have been reported."

All games in the Scottish Premierleague have a fourth official as a back up to the three officials on duty.

"This has been raised with the Scottish League at various times but they decided, for reasons of costs, not to proceed," said McVicar.

A similar situation occurred last season during a Third Division match, when an East Fife supporter answered an emergency call to run the line at an East Fife v Peterhead match.

However, in this case, a plea had already gone out on national radio for any qualified referees in the local area to contact Bayview Stadium, with the game in danger of being abandoned.

The eventual replacement was only allowed to indicate when the ball had gone into touch, while the referee took full responsibility for the offside rule in that half of the pitch.