Perhaps only the leader of the free world’s Twitter feed rivals referee John Beaton’s performance at Ibrox on Saturday for providing consistently eye-popping, jaw-dropping material.

The under-fire whistler managed to miss what should have been two red cards for Rangers, as Wes Foderingham handled outside of his area before Joe Garner, Scottish football’s phony hard-man equivalent of Danny Dyer, took out Dougie Imrie with yet another late challenge.

Garner may wish to note that taking out an opponent when the ball is long gone is not the mark of a tough guy, but the mark of a coward. But that is beside the point.

A contentious penalty award for Rangers as well from Beaton when Grant Gillespie’s arm around Jon Toral caused him to fall backwards with a delayed reaction that rivalled Paul Alcock after being shoved by Paolo Di Canio, had not only the referee-bashers out in force but the conspiracy theorists as well.

As sure as night follows day, social media was soon teeming with posts from followers of other clubs, mainly Celtic, of course, branding the decisions from Beaton as “honest mistakes”.

The selective memories that football fans possess when it comes to forgetting about refereeing errors that worked in their favour, and hanging onto each one that goes in favour of their rivals as conclusive proof of some overarching conspiracy against their team is as predictable as it is easily refutable.

Was the recent penalty awarded to Celtic at McDiarmid Park by Craig Thomson any less ridiculous than the one awarded to Rangers at the weekend? Was Kouassi Eboue’s high challenge yesterday against St Mirren not deserving of a harsher punishment, just as Garner’s challenge on Imrie undoubtedly was?

There are endless mistakes made by officials over the years that you could list in favour of one team or another, but by alleging that something sinister lies behind it misses the wider point and what is a real issue that faces our game. Maybe it is simply the case that our ‘top level’ referees just aren’t very good.

I am reluctant to criticise officials, because there is no doubt that it is at times a thankless task. The abuse they receive in the line of duty can be way over the top, and the level of scrutiny they are under these days with cameras dissecting their every decision is unprecedented. So how can they be helped?

Referees have always been pantomime villains, and slaughtering an official’s performance over a post-match pint is a tradition handed down through the generations, but these days there does appear to be a case for saying that the level of high-profile mistakes we are seeing on a week-to-week basis is at a higher level than it has ever been.

Where a lot of referees don’t help themselves, is in the attitude they adopt towards players. On the whole, professionals will accept that officials make errors, but what they cannot stand is the aloof, ‘headmaster’ persona taken on by more than a few Scottish referees.

For all his headline-grabbing gaffes over the years, you will mainly hear players talking about Willie Collum in positive terms because they feel they can talk to him and he is happy to explain his decisions.

Some of the younger refs like Beaton, Nick Walsh and Steven McLean could perhaps learn from that. They won’t get every decision right, but they would certainly not put as many noses out of joint on the park and in the stands if they weren’t so dismissive of the players whose respect they are looking to earn.

The buck for the standard of officiating in this country stops with John Fleming, the SFA’s head of refereeing, and it was heartening to hear him talk last week of embracing video technology.

Perhaps the time has come to start thinking about how we can use technology as a tool to help our referees rather than as a means by which to crucify them.

Of course, there are concerns over where the use of video replays stops and how they will affect the flow of the game, but key incidents like the ones so badly misjudged in real time by Beaton on Saturday are so crucial to the outcome of games that I predict managers, players and fans would soon get over that.

Refereeing errors have been a huge part of our game for as long as it has been played, but the time has come to help our referees get more of these key moments right than they are currently managing to.

The only downside will be finding something else to talk about in the boozer.