In his School Year book Beaton’s peers knew exactly what he was, when the Crown Bar is your preferred location after a Glasgow Derby no follow up questions are required.
Beaton took a 5-1 defeat on the chin, swallowed his pride and returned to Ibrox in December 2018 to turn in an incredible performance where Alfredo Morelos booted lumps out of Scott Brown, Tony Ralston and Ryan Christie without even seeing a yellow card.
As the Celtic striker raced into position he was hit by the double whammy of Ben Davies bundling him over, for insurance purposes Leon Balogun’s right foot swings into the back of Kyogo’s knee forcing the striker into a ‘shot’ that went wide of the post.
In charge of the Glasgow Derby at Ibrox in April the man from the Crown Bar in Bellshill had a bigger influence on the result than any of the home players.
No one is asking the officials to disclose the team they support publicly.
It’s absolutely bizarre to defend supporters of a team refereeing their teams games. No matter how fair the refs are, it isn’t seen to be fair.
The SFA didn’t give Beaton the Willie Collum treatment, he was put in charge of the April Glasgow Derby with several curious issues coming to the fore.
Slightly more subtly Beaton made a succession of ‘puzzling’ decisions on free kicks with the 23 awarded against Celtic, despite having 46% possession, more than any senior club in Scotland or England over the whole weekend.
“Like many other clubs, we will continue to press for the highest standards in relation to the VAR process in Scottish football.”
Less dramatically Beaton was working his influence on the match wih free kicks and yellow cards. Challenges from Celtic players almost always resulted in free kicks while their opponents had licence to do as they please by putting the boot in.
If Beaton didn’t get Sunday’s match it would have been the post-split fixture at Celtic Park or a possible Scottish Cup Final. Ibrox on Sunday is definitely the lesser evil of the three options.