ENGLAND BAFFLED BY CELTIC POPPY ROW

THE REFEREE debate which is a blight on Scottish football, will no doubt outlast the Celtic supporters' Bloodstained Poppy banner row.

Though I know which is the more important topic. And it is most certainly not the one which centres on a purely football matter.

However, both subjects were in evidence during Sky Sports excellent live coverage of the English Premier League game between Stoke City and Birmingham City.

The build up to the action featured a number of clips showing Stoke as the victims of a succession of absurd refereeing decisions, plus the reaction after those incidents of Stoke manager, Tony Pullis.

Pullis was rightly furious and reckoned that so far this season bad refereeing decisions have cost Stoke seven points.

It was a view Sky's outstanding Andy Gray agreed with.

However - and this is just one way things are different in England - nobody from Stoke was ranting and raving about any anti-Stoke conspiracy. Nobody claimed that refs who don't come from the Potteries hate the club.

Nobody even hinted that the Football Association and the EPL's refereeing hierarchy are institutionally biased against Stoke City.

Pullis, for all his rage in the immediate aftermath of such wrong decisions, clearly knows that to talk of conspiracy would not only be as wrong as the decisions which have cost his club, but also make him and Stoke look foolish.

It is doubtful if the good men who are the directors of  the club of Sir Stanley Matthews would tolerate such nonsense, far less join in.

There was also the sight of both teams wearing a Poppy on their shirts, without any row breaking out about it being bloodstained.

Now, I lived and worked in Birmingham for a decade from the mid 1970s and know there are more people living there of Irish descent than there are in the whole of Scotland.  None of them seem to have any problem with the Blues wearing a poppy on the strip.

Likewise, through the length and breadth of England this weekend supporters in their hundreds of thousands will stand in solemn and respectful silence to honour the fallen in an Act of Remembrance.

And at the matches covered by Sky in England there will be no need for them to commit journalistic suicide by muting the sound of the silence being broken by booing and singing. For, unless some Celtic zealots infiltrate, there will be none.

There will be no debate in newspapers, on websites or radio phone ins. In fact, many of the English pals I have spoken to cannot quite understand what is going on up here over Celtic fans and their Poppy protest.

But I am indebted to one Celtic supporter who has penned a well written and thoughtful piece on the Celtic Underground site, under the name of Bhoy Ali.

He reveals himself to be a Muslim, and makes the comparison between the terrorist zealots who have highjacked that religion, and the extremists among  Celtic supporters who seek to highjack not just the club's fanbase, but the very club itself.

Bhoy Ali goes on to say that he knows and mixes with many Celtic supporters but cannot think of one who agrees with the Bloodstained Poppy banner, or with the minority of morons who have flooded the many Celtic sites with their bile.

As I said, it is a thoughtful and well written piece, and I commend it to everyone of every hue. Protestant, Roman Catholic, Muslim and non believers alike.

Not to mention the many English men and woman who find the actions of those who raised aloft that Bloodstained Poppy banner, so distasteful and bewildering.

Rationale does not always come from the most obvious place. But it is out there just the same. You've just got to look and listen. And stop and think.