Scottish Conservative & Unionist party leader and linesman Douglas Ross – has complained about the abuse he gets when running the line.
The general abuse is ‘Tory b***ard’ or just general Brexit comments.
He said: “What I find is that it’s more during the warm up because you can hear the really personal comments a bit more then.
“During an actual match you’ve got your earpiece in and there’s the noise of the crowd.
“Before I always do a bit of running and stretching at the perimeter and that’s when they really have a go at me.
“They bring up ‘red card’, my politics, my parentage, the fact that I can’t have a mother and father and have been born in wedlock because I’m a Tory in Scotland.
“All of that comes up. A lot of it is in good nature, there’s a bit of it not so much but you take the rough with the smooth.
“I do get Brexit comments, that comes in quite a bit.
“The fact that I’m the only one that mixes being a politician and an assistant referee at the highest level tells you it’s not a common path that politicians would take.
“It certainly doesn’t make you much more popular.”
He added: “Quite often the managers are funny about it. I remember I was doing a Championship game and, I won’t name the manager, but he is a difficult guy to have in the dugout.
“This guy kept nip, nip, nipping at me and I was absolutely fed up with him and I wouldn’t respond to him and he goes ‘I vote Tory you know, you’ve got to speak to me, I’m a Tory’.
“I was a wee bit nicer to him but not much because he had annoyed me for about 87 minutes of the match up until that point.”
