BBC journalist Tom English deletes tweet after controversial footage in Rangers win
A backlash online saw BBC Scotland journalist Tom English delete his tweet about a supposed handball by Alex Lowry for Rangers against Livingston last night.
The Chief Sportswriter for BBC Scotland had been commenting on the current standard of refereeing in the Scottish Premiership, along with footage of the sequence where the Gers youngster leaned into a header and diverted it to Allan McGregor.
His page no longer bears the evidence of any of this after he deleted the messages following criticism from Ibrox fans, although one captured a screenshot before he did.
He wrote on his personal Twitter account last night: “Referees are on a very, very bad run in Scotland… Elsewhere tonight, offside goals not spotted and second yellows not given. Tough job, but…”
Tough job, but…
Refereeing is indeed a tough job but being a sportswriter on social media is also not easy.
Fans of all teams are on the lookout for a wrong opinion and it appears English has fallen foul of it on this occasion.
What he said probably does not warrant a full scale enquiry as it was a debatable event which it is still not entirely clear when watched multiple times online.
18-year-old Lowry looks like he almost catches the ball as he clears it off the line from Jack Fitzwater’s header at a corner.
But whether he actually touches it with his chest or his arm is very hard to say.
Either way referee Don Robertson’s view of the contact is almost entirely obscured by multiple players so it would have been impossible for him to guess.
So the argument is ultimately not whether it was a penalty but whether the official could have possibly said it was.
The only way it could be conclusively settled would likely be via the use of VAR and multiple camera angles, and that would likely start a whole new argument.
In other Rangers news, Chris Sutton weighed into the debate about the potential handball.