Former Scottish referee Steve Conroy has revealed that former Celtic boss Neil Lennon and ex-Hearts owner Vladimir Romanov played a key role in the whistler strike.
The referees in Scotland infamously walked away from the game in 2010 amid claims they had been pushed to breaking point by those within the game leading to the SFA pulling in foreign referees for the game. Now Conroy has pointed the finger at Celtic and Hearts as among the two most difficult clubs to officiate during that time period.
Conroy doesn't believe the current batch of refs will go on a strike again, as he reckons the levels of fury levelled towards the men in the middle has dropped significantly in recent years. He told the Get Involved Referee podcast : “We were genuinely scared for our safety back then. We were worried that someone was going to get hurt – either at work or at home – because it was constant.
"It wasn’t just criticism ‘Oh Conroy got it wrong again’ it was personal insults and personal threats. And you’ll never convince me other than it was totally orchestrated by others to deflect from adverse events that were going on elsewhere.
"People were genuinely worried about going to games. It was a tough time and it was horrible. It wasn’t solely, but it was mainly a couple of teams and a couple of individuals that it made it very difficult and very unpleasant to do your work at that time.
“There was genuine heartfelt fear that something was going to happen either to us or to someone in the family – and certain officials were not condemning it. Neil Lennon was not a friend of referees back then and mad Vlad wasn’t helping things either. It all turned and everything that they did wrong was blamed on us and we were deliberately targeted.”
Conroy claims the situation with Lennon reached boiling point when referee Dougie McDonald awarded Celtic a penalty against Dundee United, before reversing the decision. He states that he was caught out by Lennon after claiming he had made the U-turn after consulting linesman Steven Craven, and later quit the game.
Conroy went on: “Dougie didn’t help and he played into the hands of Mr Lennon and we just strengthened the idea that there was a vendetta against Celtic and everything they were saying about us was correct. I was secretary of the refs association at the time and it got to the point that we were not willing to put up with it any more.
"However, I don’t think any of us anticipated a majority vote to withdraw our labour. I don’t think it will ever happen again.
"Things are certainly not as toxic as they were back then and if I reference Jim Goodwin who said David Dickinson was conned by Ryan Porteous in the Hibs-Aberdeen game back in 2010 that would have been completely different. The ref would have got it."
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