WHO would be a referee? Not I. Yes, journalists get our fair share of grief too, but most of that occurs online. I have only had one red-faced gentleman spitting with rage and questioning whether I was born in wedlock in my face at my place of work, but who am I to question the Head of Sport?

Frankly, I could do without being the object of abuse from thousands of these characters, even though it has to be said that our officials sometimes don’t help themselves.

For me, you can’t question the integrity of our referees, only their competency. Just as a bull charges upon seeing the colour red for instance, so too does Craig Thomson seem to become enraged by the slightest flash of claret and amber. But the fact that the five red cards he has shown in the Premiership this season have all gone to Motherwell players doesn’t indicate that he has any agenda against Stephen Robinson’s side.

Yes, two of those five have now been rescinded, and Cedric Kipre’s dismissal in the Betfred Cup final was a poor call too, but anyone crying conspiracy from under their tin-foil hats needs to have a look at themselves.

Where Thomson lets himself down, in my book, is his eagerness to reach for his top pocket. He clearly couldn’t have seen the incident between Kipre and Celtic captain Scott Brown last weekend for example – if he had, he surely wouldn’t have indicated that he saw a stamp – but no sooner had the assumption been made in his head over what had happened than the red card was held aloft.

It seems unlikely that he was unaware of the presence of his assistant referees who, as the name would suggest, are there to assist the referee. This is just a long shot, but perhaps a wee word in their ears to see if either of them had a clear view of the incident should have been the first course of action for such an experienced whistler.

Maybe I’m doing him a disservice, and he actually heard the shouts of ‘RED CARD, RED CARD’ from Douglas Ross as he watched the game at home in Moray.

Either way, football fans will probably all agree that at times, our referees do themselves no favours. But it’s not as if the players are helping them either.

Maybe it’s time we had a closer look at player conduct when these contentious decisions arise, seeing as the players themselves have no qualms about sticking the boot into the refs when they see fit.

In the tangle that saw Kipre ordered off last week, there is no doubt that his boot came into contact with Brown’s leg, but you will never convince me that the contact was enough to send Brown leaping up with a yelp of pain and then collapsing to the ground.

I am a huge fan of Brown, and he no doubt felt just as aggrieved when Neymar pulled a similar stunt to get him sent off a few years back. But what kind of example is he setting to youngsters as the Celtic captain when he too indulges in a spot of theatrics to get an opponent sent off?

One of the things you often hear after a game when there has been a red card is that the referee ruined the match. It was the same on Sunday. A cracking contest in the first half then simply became attack versus defence, and the paying punters were cheated as a result. But who cheated them? The player, or the referee for falling into his trap?

I am not absolving our referees from scrutiny. Some of the decisions over the course of the season have been baffling, and there is a justifiable concern over the strength in depth of the refereeing pool at the top level in Scotland.

And it is not an attack on Brown, who has simply provided the most recent example of a behaviour that is prevalent across all of our clubs.

But if players are going to lambast officials when they do get calls wrong, then maybe they have to look at themselves first and stop trying to con them.