Since Celtic’s 3-0 win over Hearts on Saturday social media has put a focus on the display of Kevin Clancy.
The Glasgow based lawyer has been on the refereeing scene for a decade, taking charge of the 2018 Scottish Cup Final followed by four Glasgow Derbies. Celtic have won one of those matches and lost three, a very unusual trend in that fixture.
His last appointment for the Derby match was in April 2023 which suggests that his star is slipping with John Beaton, Don Robertson and Nick Walsh dominating the fixture, even Steven McLean has been brought in from the cold refereeing the fixture in May 2023 and March 2025 having previously only been selected for the December 2016 Derby match.
Today and tomorrow Clancy will be sharing his expert knowledge on Commercial Disputes at a Conference in Edinburgh, hopefully he has a better grasp of that than he has of part-time income stream.
The usual edge was missing from Saturday’s Celtic v Hearts match, by half-time it seemed that both sides had settled on the 3-0 scoreline as they moved on into their final seven SPFL matches of the season.
Celtic fans are used to their side being refereed ‘erratically’, Bobby Madden set an incredible benchmark at Aberdeen in October 2021 when he awarded 27 fouls against Celtic despite having 61% possession in a match won 2-1 by Ange Postecoglou’s side. A breakthrough away win for the newly installed Celtic manager.
THE CLANCY STATS
On Saturday Clancy awarded 14 fouls against Celtic in a match in which they had 71% possession of the ball.
Those figures only scratch the surface, Hearts committed just nine fouls during the match with Cammy Devlin responsible for 6, 44, 60 and 66 minutes before being substituted in the 71st minute.
Devlin’s only ‘quality’ is that he is combative, Scottish football suits him perfectly, this season he has picked up 11 yellow cards in 34 matches.
Cameron Carter-Vickers is a very different type of player, he is a defender but ‘putting it about’ isn’t part of his game, he stands his ground but doesn’t intimidate opponents or put the boot in.
Amazingly, or maybe not with Clancy in charge, Carter-Vickers committed five of Celtic’s 14 fouls on Saturday with four committed within a 19 minute spell.
Frankly the free-kicks awarded were pathetic, it explains why Clancy and his SFA buddies don’t get near any major UEFA matches, some token Conference games are given here and there to keep them in the loop. The expanded Champions League format hasn’t involved a single Scottish official.
Fouls were awarded against Celtic as follows:
3 Kuhn
7 Carter-Vickers
13 Nawrocki
16 Carter-Vickers
22 Carter-Vickers
26 Carter-Vickers
27 Kuhn
7 fouls against Celtic in 24 minutes
57 Maeda
62 Maeda
77 Johnston
79 Hatate
89 Yang
89 Carter-Vickers
90 Johnston
3 fouls against Celtic from 89 minutes on.
Hearts players knew that if they fall over in matches against Celtic they will almost certainly be awarded a free kick. Either they manufacture contact or they anticipate it, before they hit the turf the whistle will almost certainly have been blown to give their team-mates 30 seconds to take a breather and reorganise.
Carter-Vickers is not remotely a dirty player, Clancy acknowledges that, he opted against compounding his ‘erratic’ decision making by deciding not to book the former Spurs defender. That would have drawn extra attention to the referees performance.
But four fouls awarded against the same player over 19 minutes really deserves to be explained. Not by Willie Collum who is too busy on his media charm offensive.
Half of the fouls awarded against Celtic came in the first third of the match, another puzzling statistic, again one that will never be explained.
With the dominance of the Lanarkshire Refereeing Association Collum has a very shallow talent pool to select from.
Crawford Allan’s old favourites of Beaton, Walsh, McLean, Clancy and Don Robertson show no signs of reaching the giddy heights of competence, those bubbling under like Matthew MacDermit, Ross Hardie and Grant Irvine are best kept away from the spotlight.
With no legacy media outlet prepared to touch the refereeing issues in Scotland the problem will only get worse, with the next generation aspiring to become the next Clancy or Beaton before joining Kenny Clark, Bobby Tait and Stuart Dougal sharing hilarious stories on the after dinner circuit.
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Kevin Clancy has had the most horrific 25 minutes of his career today & he still cannot stop Celtic leading 2-0.?
Someone needs to read the rules to this imbecile.????— Setanta’s Dog (@SetantaD) March 29, 2025
#CELHEA Have to admire Kevin Clancy’s creativity in finding a wide variety of different ways of awarding decisions to Hearts.
— ?TheOtherJohnMcDonnell? (@CarlJungleBhoy) March 29, 2025
26 minutes in and comfortable the worst refereeing performance of the season by Kevin Clancy.
Fuck knows what game he is watching here.
— CaI (@caim67) March 29, 2025
Any chance of Kevin Clancy getting subbed off? Absolutely inept.
— Heehaw (@Bagflea75) March 29, 2025
Kevin Clancy is dreadful. Already had enough of him blowing a foul every time two players come together and we’re not even ten minutes in.
— DF. (@DaveF0984) March 29, 2025
