Men who can’t throw up a shinty ball trying to punish people who can

As the few clubs who can be bothered get set to attend the Camanachd Association AGM on Friday in Fort William, wacky brotherhood of masochists the Referees Association have put forward some gonzo rule amendments for the members’ perusal.

As anyone who has ever woken up half-cut and eccied next to Canal Parks at 2.45pm on a Saturday to find themselves on the Glenurquhart bench will know, shinty referees are notoriously inconsistent with applying the rules. A stray bugger or shit will garner a yellow card, but a hearty waist high swipe that wouldn’t go amiss at log felling training at the Scottish School of Forestry will go unpunished.

However the refs haven’t finished trying to think of nitpicking rules that they can use to agitate Caol radges and Oban minks into getting themselves sent off and suspended until 2021.

“This is our latest scam. Allow the players only one throw-up at a shy. Never mind that we play in a very windy part of the world, or that some players like a little trial run before going for it, it’ll get them raging enough that we can send them all packing by halftime and still get our mileage. Now I know most of us can’t do a decent throw-up to restart the game but that’s beside the point.”

When questioned by the Gael as to how this change would improve the game “It won’t, we’re just trying to ride some nonsense through at the AGM to make us feel like big men on the back of Hugh Dan and Gary moaning about the lack of good shying by the Lovat players in the Scottish final.”

The refs know however that success is not guaranteed so they have range of crackpot schemes lined up in case Plan A fails, “If that doesn’t work, we’re looking forward to dishing out yellow cards for people wearing helmets without chinstraps, even though we’re the ones who should have made sure that the equipment was compliant in the first place before they entered the field of play.”

“And let’s make it plain, we want our £100 fee for appearing in a televised final. Sunbeds and a body like this doesn’t come cheap.”