http://timesonline.typepad.com/thegame/
Hidden away within today's Graham Spiers Game blog is the following:
"There has been something quite disgusting about the treatment doled out to Mike McCurry, the Scottish referee who has just been binned by the SFA, two years before he was due to retire. McCurry, an ordained Baptist minister, has gone from being Scotland's leading referee two years ago to a state of oblivion in football.
First, he has had to endure ludicrous tabloid headlines about his private life, and also, due to his denominational leanings, been repeatedly abused by a section of Celtic supporters. McCurry has made mistakes on the field but his abrupt removal from the SFA list of officials is deplorable."
It is perhaps worth asking why some referees - one could mention the likes of phantom handball Iain Brines, or the consistently atrocious Eddie Smith - seem to escape without the accompanying multi-page spreads and OTT press coverage suffered by McCurry?
They have certainly been involved in multiple, controversial, and completely baffling errors in games involving 'The Old Firm'. Perhaps some 'errors' are more acceptable than others. Perhaps The Times is pointing us in the direction of an answer.
In any case, it may be wishful thinking to believe today's article slating the venomous and long-standing bigotry of the Celtic support is but the first of many, in a style similar to the Telegraph's pursuit of the MPs involved in the scandal over expenses, but it is a start.